Encompass Health (EHC) Competitors

Select Medical (NYSE:SEM) and Encompass Health (NYSE:EHC) are both mid-cap medical companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, profitability, community ranking, valuation, analyst recommendations, dividends, media sentiment, earnings and risk.

Is SEM or EHC more profitable?

Encompass Health has a net margin of 7.60% compared to Encompass Health's net margin of 3.97%. Encompass Health's return on equity of 18.11% beat Select Medical's return on equity.

Company	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Select Medical	3.97%	18.11%	3.64%
Encompass Health	7.60%	18.01%	6.55%

Do analysts rate SEM or EHC?

Select Medical presently has a consensus target price of $34.25, suggesting a potential upside of 0.88%. Encompass Health has a consensus target price of $90.29, suggesting a potential upside of 5.66%. Given Select Medical's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Encompass Health is more favorable than Select Medical.

Company	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Select Medical	0 Sell rating(s)	2 Hold rating(s)	2 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.50
Encompass Health	0 Sell rating(s)	0 Hold rating(s)	7 Buy rating(s)	1 Strong Buy rating(s)	3.13

Is SEM or EHC a better dividend stock?

Select Medical pays an annual dividend of $0.50 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.5%. Encompass Health pays an annual dividend of $0.60 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.7%. Select Medical pays out 23.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Encompass Health pays out 16.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years.

Do institutionals and insiders hold more shares of SEM or EHC?

89.5% of Select Medical shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 97.3% of Encompass Health shares are held by institutional investors. 19.1% of Select Medical shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 2.1% of Encompass Health shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Which has more volatility & risk, SEM or EHC?

Select Medical has a beta of 1.38, indicating that its stock price is 38% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Encompass Health has a beta of 0.92, indicating that its stock price is 8% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Does the media prefer SEM or EHC?

In the previous week, Encompass Health had 1 more articles in the media than Select Medical. MarketBeat recorded 9 mentions for Encompass Health and 8 mentions for Select Medical. Select Medical's average media sentiment score of 0.99 beat Encompass Health's score of 0.57 indicating that Encompass Health is being referred to more favorably in the news media.

Company	Very Positive	Positive	Neutral	Negative	Very Negative	Overall Sentiment
Select Medical	4 Very Positive mention(s)	0 Positive mention(s)	1 Neutral mention(s)	0 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive
Encompass Health	5 Very Positive mention(s)	1 Positive mention(s)	0 Neutral mention(s)	0 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive

Which has stronger valuation & earnings, SEM or EHC?

Encompass Health has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Select Medical. Select Medical is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Encompass Health, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Company	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Select Medical	$6.66B	0.66	$243.49M	$2.10	16.17
Encompass Health	$4.80B	1.79	$352M	$3.70	23.09

Does the MarketBeat Community prefer SEM or EHC?

Encompass Health received 159 more outperform votes than Select Medical when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 71.83% of users gave Encompass Health an outperform vote while only 57.85% of users gave Select Medical an outperform vote.

Company	Underperform	Outperform
Select Medical	Outperform Votes 328 57.85%	Underperform Votes 239 42.15%
Encompass Health	Outperform Votes 487 71.83%	Underperform Votes 191 28.17%

Summary

Encompass Health beats Select Medical on 16 of the 21 factors compared between the two stocks.