HCA vs. ALC, THC, UHS, EHC, ENSG, ACHC, SEM, USPH, WOOF, and BKD
Should you be buying HCA Healthcare stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of HCA Healthcare include Alcon (ALC), Tenet Healthcare (THC), Universal Health Services (UHS), Encompass Health (EHC), The Ensign Group (ENSG), Acadia Healthcare (ACHC), Select Medical (SEM), U.S. Physical Therapy (USPH), Petco Health and Wellness (WOOF), and Brookdale Senior Living (BKD). These companies are all part of the "health care facilities" industry.
HCA Healthcare vs.
HCA Healthcare (NYSE:HCA) and Alcon (NYSE:ALC) are both large-cap medical companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their media sentiment, profitability, valuation, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, earnings, community ranking, risk and dividends.
62.7% of HCA Healthcare shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 53.9% of Alcon shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.6% of HCA Healthcare shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 1.5% of Alcon shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
HCA Healthcare has a beta of 1.63, meaning that its share price is 63% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Alcon has a beta of 0.98, meaning that its share price is 2% less volatile than the S&P 500.
In the previous week, HCA Healthcare had 17 more articles in the media than Alcon. MarketBeat recorded 20 mentions for HCA Healthcare and 3 mentions for Alcon. HCA Healthcare's average media sentiment score of 0.13 beat Alcon's score of -0.19 indicating that HCA Healthcare is being referred to more favorably in the media.
HCA Healthcare currently has a consensus target price of $385.63, indicating a potential upside of 27.01%. Alcon has a consensus target price of $102.72, indicating a potential upside of 21.19%. Given HCA Healthcare's higher possible upside, equities research analysts clearly believe HCA Healthcare is more favorable than Alcon.
HCA Healthcare has higher revenue and earnings than Alcon. HCA Healthcare is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Alcon, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
HCA Healthcare pays an annual dividend of $2.64 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.9%. Alcon pays an annual dividend of $0.26 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.3%. HCA Healthcare pays out 11.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Alcon pays out 11.1% 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.
Alcon has a net margin of 11.89% compared to HCA Healthcare's net margin of 8.52%. HCA Healthcare's return on equity of 520.98% beat Alcon's return on equity.
HCA Healthcare received 1033 more outperform votes than Alcon when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 77.30% of users gave HCA Healthcare an outperform vote while only 62.87% of users gave Alcon an outperform vote.
Summary
HCA Healthcare beats Alcon on 15 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.
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New MarketBeat Followers Over Time
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Media Sentiment Over Time
This chart shows the average media sentiment of NYSE and its competitors over the past 90 days as caculated by MarketBeat. The averaged score is equivalent to the following: Very Negative Sentiment <= -1.5, Negative Sentiment > -1.5 and <= -0.5, Neutral Sentiment > -0.5 and < 0.5, Positive Sentiment >= 0.5 and < 1.5, and Very Positive Sentiment >= 1.5.
HCA Healthcare Competitors List
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This page (NYSE:HCA) was last updated on 12/23/2024 by MarketBeat.com Staff
