UHS vs. ACHC, CYH, ELV, HCA, HUM, ITGR, ALC, THC, EHC, and ENSG
Should you be buying Universal Health Services stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Universal Health Services include Acadia Healthcare (ACHC), Community Health Systems (CYH), Elevance Health (ELV), HCA Healthcare (HCA), Humana (HUM), Integer (ITGR), Alcon (ALC), Tenet Healthcare (THC), Encompass Health (EHC), and The Ensign Group (ENSG). These companies are all part of the "medical" sector.
Universal Health Services vs. Its Competitors
Acadia Healthcare (NASDAQ:ACHC) and Universal Health Services (NYSE:UHS) are both medical companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, institutional ownership, valuation, media sentiment, earnings, analyst recommendations, profitability and risk.
Acadia Healthcare presently has a consensus price target of $47.94, indicating a potential upside of 106.04%. Universal Health Services has a consensus price target of $224.77, indicating a potential upside of 27.05%. Given Acadia Healthcare's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Acadia Healthcare is more favorable than Universal Health Services.
Universal Health Services has a net margin of 7.44% compared to Acadia Healthcare's net margin of 5.94%. Universal Health Services' return on equity of 17.79% beat Acadia Healthcare's return on equity.
86.1% of Universal Health Services shares are held by institutional investors. 2.0% of Acadia Healthcare shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 16.4% of Universal Health Services shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
Universal Health Services has higher revenue and earnings than Acadia Healthcare. Universal Health Services is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Acadia Healthcare, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
In the previous week, Universal Health Services had 9 more articles in the media than Acadia Healthcare. MarketBeat recorded 14 mentions for Universal Health Services and 5 mentions for Acadia Healthcare. Acadia Healthcare's average media sentiment score of 1.29 beat Universal Health Services' score of 1.07 indicating that Acadia Healthcare is being referred to more favorably in the media.
Acadia Healthcare has a beta of 0.93, meaning that its stock price is 7% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Universal Health Services has a beta of 1.28, meaning that its stock price is 28% more volatile than the S&P 500.
Summary
Universal Health Services beats Acadia Healthcare on 11 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.
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New MarketBeat Followers Over Time
This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding UHS and its top 5 competitors to their watchlist. Each company is represented with a line over a 90 day period.
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.
Universal Health Services Competitors List
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This page (NYSE:UHS) was last updated on 7/16/2025 by MarketBeat.com Staff
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