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 business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, institutional ownership, media sentiment, dividends, valuation, earnings, profitability and analyst recommendations.
In the previous week, HCA Healthcare had 22 more articles in the media than Acadia Healthcare. MarketBeat recorded 38 mentions for HCA Healthcare and 16 mentions for Acadia Healthcare. HCA Healthcare's average media sentiment score of 0.85 beat Acadia Healthcare's score of 0.14 indicating that HCA Healthcare is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
HCA Healthcare has a net margin of 8.21% compared to Acadia Healthcare's net margin of 4.31%. Acadia Healthcare's return on equity of 8.34% beat HCA Healthcare's return on equity.
62.7% of HCA Healthcare shares are held by institutional investors. 2.0% of Acadia Healthcare shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 1.3% of HCA Healthcare 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.
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.
Acadia Healthcare has a beta of 0.9, suggesting that its share price is 10% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, HCA Healthcare has a beta of 1.4, suggesting that its share price is 40% more volatile than the S&P 500.
Acadia Healthcare currently has a consensus target price of $35.09, suggesting a potential upside of 44.47%. HCA Healthcare has a consensus target price of $422.31, suggesting a potential upside of 2.82%. Given Acadia Healthcare's higher probable upside, equities analysts plainly believe Acadia Healthcare is more favorable than HCA Healthcare.
Summary
HCA Healthcare beats Acadia Healthcare on 13 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 10/14/2025 by MarketBeat.com Staff
