HCA Healthcare (HCA) Gains But Lags Market: What You Should Know
HCA Healthcare (HCA) ended the recent trading session at $287.77, demonstrating a +1.04% swing from the preceding day's closing price. The stock fell short of the S&P 500, which registered a gain of 1.23% for the day. Meanwhile, the Dow gained 1.06%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, added 1.7%.
Heading into today, shares of the hospital operator had gained 5.98% over the past month, outpacing the Medical sector's gain of 3.16% and the S&P 500's gain of 0.94% in that time.
Investors will be eagerly watching for the performance of HCA Healthcare in its upcoming earnings disclosure. The company's earnings report is set to be unveiled on January 30, 2024. On that day, HCA Healthcare is projected to report earnings of $5.02 per share, which would represent year-over-year growth of 8.19%. Alongside, our most recent consensus estimate is anticipating revenue of $16.55 billion, indicating a 6.77% upward movement from the same quarter last year.
It is also important to note the recent changes to analyst estimates for HCA Healthcare. These recent revisions tend to reflect the evolving nature of short-term business trends. Therefore, positive revisions in estimates convey analysts' confidence in the company's business performance and profit potential.
Research indicates that these estimate revisions are directly correlated with near-term share price momentum. We developed the Zacks Rank to capitalize on this phenomenon. Our system takes these estimate changes into account and delivers a clear, actionable rating model.
The Zacks Rank system, stretching from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), has a noteworthy track record of outperforming, validated by third-party audits, with stocks rated #1 producing an average annual return of +25% since the year 1988. Over the last 30 days, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has witnessed a 0.3% increase. HCA Healthcare is holding a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold) right now.
Digging into valuation, HCA Healthcare currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 14.58. This indicates no noticeable deviation in contrast to its industry's Forward P/E of 14.58.
Also, we should mention that HCA has a PEG ratio of 1.52. The PEG ratio is similar to the widely-used P/E ratio, but this metric also takes the company's expected earnings growth rate into account. As the market closed yesterday, the Medical - Hospital industry was having an average PEG ratio of 1.74.
The Medical - Hospital industry is part of the Medical sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 69, putting it in the top 28% of all 250+ industries.
The strength of our individual industry groups is measured by the Zacks Industry Rank, which is calculated based on the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks within these groups. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.
Be sure to use Zacks.com to monitor all these stock-influencing metrics, and more, throughout the forthcoming trading sessions.
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HCA Healthcare, Inc. (HCA) : Free Stock Analysis Report
