HCA vs. ALC, THC, UHS, EHC, ENSG, ACHC, SEM, USPH, BKD, and WOOF
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), Brookdale Senior Living (BKD), and Petco Health and Wellness (WOOF). These companies are all part of the "health care facilities" industry.
Alcon (NYSE:ALC) and HCA Healthcare (NYSE:HCA) are both large-cap medical companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their media sentiment, dividends, risk, analyst recommendations, earnings, valuation, profitability, institutional ownership and community ranking.
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.
In the previous week, HCA Healthcare had 9 more articles in the media than Alcon. MarketBeat recorded 9 mentions for HCA Healthcare and 0 mentions for Alcon. Alcon's average media sentiment score of 0.96 beat HCA Healthcare's score of 0.00 indicating that HCA Healthcare is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Alcon presently has a consensus price target of $94.71, indicating a potential upside of 3.64%. HCA Healthcare has a consensus price target of $325.59, indicating a potential downside of 3.51%. Given HCA Healthcare's higher probable upside, equities analysts plainly believe Alcon is more favorable than HCA Healthcare.
Alcon has a beta of 0.97, suggesting that its share price is 3% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, HCA Healthcare has a beta of 1.69, suggesting that its share price is 69% more volatile than the S&P 500.
HCA Healthcare received 1022 more outperform votes than Alcon when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 77.33% of users gave HCA Healthcare an outperform vote while only 61.72% of users gave Alcon an outperform vote.
Alcon has a net margin of 10.96% compared to Alcon's net margin of 8.20%. Alcon's return on equity of 674.49% beat HCA Healthcare's return on equity.
53.9% of Alcon shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 62.7% of HCA Healthcare shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.5% of Alcon shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 1.6% of HCA Healthcare shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.
Summary
HCA Healthcare beats Alcon on 15 of the 19 factors compared between the two stocks.
Get HCA Healthcare News Delivered to You Automatically
Sign up to receive the latest news and ratings for HCA and its competitors with MarketBeat's FREE daily newsletter.
This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding HCA and its top 5 competitors to their watchlist. Each company is represented with a line over a 90 day period.
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
Related Companies and Tools
