If You Invested $1000 in HCA Healthcare a Decade Ago, This is How Much It'd Be Worth Now
How much a stock's price changes over time is a significant driver for most investors. Not only can price performance impact your portfolio, but it can help you compare investment results across sectors and industries as well.
Another thing that can drive investing is the fear of missing out, or FOMO. This particularly applies to tech giants and popular consumer-facing stocks.
What if you'd invested in HCA Healthcare (HCA) ten years ago? It may not have been easy to hold on to HCA for all that time, but if you did, how much would your investment be worth today?
HCA Healthcare's Business In-Depth
With that in mind, let's take a look at HCA Healthcare's main business drivers.
Effective May 8, 2017, the company’s name was changed to HCA Healthcare, Inc. from HCA Holdings, Inc. It is the largest non-governmental operator of acute care hospitals in the US. Headquartered in Nashville, TN, it operates hospitals and related health care entities.
At the end of 2023, the company operated 186 hospitals and approximately 2,400 ambulatory sites of care, including surgery centers, freestanding emergency rooms, urgent care centers and physician clinics, in 20 states and the United Kingdom.
The general, acute care hospitals also provide outpatient services such as outpatient surgery, laboratory, radiology, respiratory therapy, cardiology and physical therapy. It operates in two geographically organized groups, the National and American Groups. HCA generated revenues of $65 billion in 2023.
The National Group (accounted for 27.9% of the overall 2023 revenues) had 57 hospitals located in states like Alaska, California, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia. The American Group (34.4%) has 60 hospitals in states like Colorado, Central Kansas, Louisiana and Texas.
Its Atlantic Group (32.6%) included 62 hospitals located in Florida, Georgia, Northern Kansas, Missouri and South Carolina. The company also operates seven hospitals in England that are included in the Corporate and Other group (5.2%).
The company's 178 general, acute care hospitals with 48,755 licensed beds provide a wide range of services to cater to different medical specialties, such as internal medicine, general surgery, cardiology, oncology, neurosurgery, orthopedics and obstetrics as well as diagnostic and emergency services.
Its six behavioral hospitals with 653 licensed beds offer child, adolescent and adult psychiatric care. It also provides adolescent and adult alcohol and drug abuse treatment and counseling.
Bottom Line
Anyone can invest, but building a successful investment portfolio takes a combination of a few things: research, patience, and a little bit of risk. So, if you had invested in HCA Healthcare a decade ago, you're probably feeling pretty good about your investment today.
A $1000 investment made in March 2014 would be worth $6,586.38, or a 558.64% gain, as of March 28, 2024, according to our calculations. Investors should note that this return excludes dividends but includes price increases.
In comparison, the S&P 500 gained 183.85% and the price of gold went up 60.67% over the same time frame.
Going forward, analysts are expecting more upside for HCA.
HCA Healthcare’s revenues increase on the back of a surge in admissions and outpatient surgeries. It expects equivalent admissions to grow in the range of 3-4% in 2024. Significant growth in its Managed Medicare operations is expected to drive its performance. Prudent buyouts aid in increasing patient volumes, enable network expansion and add hospitals to the portfolio. Its EPS is predicted to be within $19.7-$21.2 in 2024, higher than the 2023 figure. It has been gaining from its telemedicine business line. HCA resorts to prudent capital deployment via share buybacks and dividend payments. It increased its quarterly dividend by 10% to 66 cents in the first quarter of 2024. Its shares have outperformed the industry in the past year. Consequently, HCA Healthcare is expected to offer substantial upside potential from the current price levels.
The stock has jumped 6.29% over the past four weeks. Additionally, no earnings estimate has gone lower in the past two months, compared to 10 higher, for fiscal 2024; the consensus estimate has moved up as well.
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HCA Healthcare, Inc. (HCA) : Free Stock Analysis Report
