HCA vs. ZTS, BSX, GSK, BDX, REGN, HUM, VRTX, MCK, TAK, and GILD
Should you be buying HCA Healthcare stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of HCA Healthcare include Zoetis (ZTS), Boston Scientific (BSX), GSK (GSK), Becton, Dickinson and (BDX), Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (REGN), Humana (HUM), Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX), McKesson (MCK), Takeda Pharmaceutical (TAK), and Gilead Sciences (GILD). These companies are all part of the "medical" sector.
HCA Healthcare vs.
Zoetis (NYSE:ZTS) and HCA Healthcare (NYSE:HCA) are both large-cap medical companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, profitability, media sentiment, earnings, institutional ownership, community ranking, risk, analyst recommendations and valuation.
In the previous week, Zoetis had 1 more articles in the media than HCA Healthcare. MarketBeat recorded 9 mentions for Zoetis and 8 mentions for HCA Healthcare. Zoetis' average media sentiment score of 0.33 beat HCA Healthcare's score of 0.32 indicating that Zoetis is being referred to more favorably in the media.
90.2% of Zoetis shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 64.6% of HCA Healthcare shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.1% of Zoetis shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.6% of HCA Healthcare shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
HCA Healthcare received 290 more outperform votes than Zoetis when rated by MarketBeat users. However, 77.57% of users gave Zoetis an outperform vote while only 77.51% of users gave HCA Healthcare an outperform vote.
HCA Healthcare has higher revenue and earnings than Zoetis. HCA Healthcare is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Zoetis, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Zoetis presently has a consensus target price of $221.14, indicating a potential upside of 31.82%. HCA Healthcare has a consensus target price of $298.17, indicating a potential upside of 11.33%. Given Zoetis' stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Zoetis is more favorable than HCA Healthcare.
Zoetis has a beta of 0.77, suggesting that its share price is 23% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, HCA Healthcare has a beta of 1.64, suggesting that its share price is 64% more volatile than the S&P 500.
Zoetis has a net margin of 25.59% compared to HCA Healthcare's net margin of 9.42%. Zoetis' return on equity of 50.26% beat HCA Healthcare's return on equity.
Zoetis pays an annual dividend of $1.50 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.9%. HCA Healthcare pays an annual dividend of $2.40 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.9%. Zoetis pays out 33.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. HCA Healthcare pays out 12.0% 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. Zoetis has raised its dividend for 9 consecutive years and HCA Healthcare has raised its dividend for 3 consecutive years. Zoetis is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.
Summary
Zoetis beats HCA Healthcare on 13 of the 21 factors compared between the two stocks.
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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