HCA vs. ACHC, ENSG, CNC, EHC, ELV, SEM, UHS, ALC, THC, and BKD
Should you be buying HCA Healthcare stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of HCA Healthcare include Acadia Healthcare (ACHC), The Ensign Group (ENSG), Centene (CNC), Encompass Health (EHC), Elevance Health (ELV), Select Medical (SEM), Universal Health Services (UHS), Alcon (ALC), Tenet Healthcare (THC), and Brookdale Senior Living (BKD). These companies are all part of the "medical" sector.
HCA Healthcare vs. Its Competitors
Acadia Healthcare (NASDAQ:ACHC) and HCA Healthcare (NYSE:HCA) are both medical companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their valuation, risk, earnings, institutional ownership, profitability, analyst recommendations, dividends and media sentiment.
HCA Healthcare has a net margin of 8.07% compared to Acadia Healthcare's net margin of 5.94%. HCA Healthcare's return on equity of 1,063.91% beat Acadia Healthcare's return on equity.
Acadia Healthcare has a beta of 0.93, indicating that its share price is 7% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, HCA Healthcare has a beta of 1.47, indicating that its share price is 47% more volatile than the S&P 500.
Acadia Healthcare currently has a consensus price target of $47.94, indicating a potential upside of 100.60%. HCA Healthcare has a consensus price target of $395.71, indicating a potential upside of 6.14%. Given Acadia Healthcare's higher possible upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Acadia Healthcare is more favorable than HCA Healthcare.
HCA Healthcare has higher revenue and earnings than Acadia Healthcare. Acadia Healthcare is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than HCA Healthcare, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
In the previous week, HCA Healthcare had 39 more articles in the media than Acadia Healthcare. MarketBeat recorded 41 mentions for HCA Healthcare and 2 mentions for Acadia Healthcare. HCA Healthcare's average media sentiment score of 0.95 beat Acadia Healthcare's score of 0.84 indicating that HCA Healthcare is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
62.7% of HCA Healthcare shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.3% of Acadia Healthcare shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.3% of HCA Healthcare shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
Summary
HCA Healthcare beats Acadia Healthcare on 15 of the 16 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 HCA 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.
HCA Healthcare Competitors List
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This page (NYSE:HCA) was last updated on 7/3/2025 by MarketBeat.com Staff
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