HCA vs. ALC, THC, EHC, UHS, ENSG, ACHC, SEM, BKD, USPH, 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), Encompass Health (EHC), Universal Health Services (UHS), The Ensign Group (ENSG), Acadia Healthcare (ACHC), Select Medical (SEM), Brookdale Senior Living (BKD), U.S. Physical Therapy (USPH), and Petco Health and Wellness (WOOF). These companies are all part of the "health care facilities" industry.
HCA Healthcare vs. Its Competitors
HCA Healthcare (NYSE:HCA) and Alcon (NYSE:ALC) are both large-cap medical companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their media sentiment, risk, community ranking, analyst recommendations, dividends, institutional ownership, valuation, earnings and profitability.
HCA Healthcare has a beta of 1.49, suggesting that its stock price is 49% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Alcon has a beta of 0.95, suggesting that its stock price is 5% less volatile than the S&P 500.
HCA Healthcare presently has a consensus target price of $392.47, suggesting a potential upside of 5.67%. Alcon has a consensus target price of $106.13, suggesting a potential upside of 19.17%. Given Alcon's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Alcon is more favorable than HCA Healthcare.
62.7% of HCA Healthcare shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 53.9% of Alcon shares are held by institutional investors. 1.3% of HCA Healthcare shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.5% of Alcon shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.
HCA Healthcare pays an annual dividend of $2.88 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.8%. Alcon pays an annual dividend of $0.26 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.3%. HCA Healthcare pays out 12.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Alcon pays out 11.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. HCA Healthcare has raised its dividend for 6 consecutive years and Alcon has raised its dividend for 4 consecutive years. HCA Healthcare is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.
In the previous week, HCA Healthcare had 20 more articles in the media than Alcon. MarketBeat recorded 23 mentions for HCA Healthcare and 3 mentions for Alcon. HCA Healthcare's average media sentiment score of 1.08 beat Alcon's score of 0.38 indicating that HCA Healthcare is being referred to more favorably in the media.
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.
Alcon has a net margin of 11.89% compared to HCA Healthcare's net margin of 8.16%. HCA Healthcare's return on equity of 586.47% beat Alcon's return on equity.
HCA Healthcare received 1030 more outperform votes than Alcon when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 77.15% of users gave HCA Healthcare an outperform vote while only 63.58% of users gave Alcon an outperform vote.
Summary
HCA Healthcare beats Alcon on 15 of the 22 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.
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
Related Companies and Tools
This page (NYSE:HCA) was last updated on 6/13/2025 by MarketBeat.com Staff
Buy HCA Stock Free HCA Stock Alerts