Royal Bank of Canada Cuts HCA Healthcare (NYSE:HCA) Price Target to $384.00

HCA Healthcare (NYSE:HCA) had its price target lowered by Royal Bank of Canada from $405.00 to $384.00 in a research report released on Monday,Benzinga reports. Royal Bank of Canada currently has an outperform rating on the stock.

HCA has been the subject of several other reports. Barclays dropped their price objective on HCA Healthcare from $392.00 to $366.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Monday. Truist Financial dropped their price objective on HCA Healthcare from $430.00 to $390.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, January 6th. Wells Fargo & Company downgraded HCA Healthcare from an “equal weight” rating to an “underweight” rating and dropped their price objective for the company from $400.00 to $320.00 in a research note on Monday, November 25th. StockNews.com downgraded HCA Healthcare from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, November 4th. Finally, Oppenheimer raised their price target on HCA Healthcare from $390.00 to $400.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, October 28th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating, thirteen have assigned a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $382.19.

HCA Healthcare Stock Down 0.3 %

HCA opened at $327.80 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 48.71, a current ratio of 1.12 and a quick ratio of 1.00. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $313.28 and a 200-day simple moving average of $353.27. The stock has a market capitalization of $83.03 billion, a P/E ratio of 14.72, a P/E/G ratio of 1.09 and a beta of 1.64. HCA Healthcare has a 12 month low of $289.98 and a 12 month high of $417.14.

HCA Healthcare (NYSE:HCA) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Friday, January 24th. The company reported $6.22 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $6.03 by $0.19. HCA Healthcare had a return on equity of 520.98% and a net margin of 8.52%. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $5.90 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts anticipate that HCA Healthcare will post 21.75 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

HCA Healthcare Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 31st. Shareholders of record on Monday, March 17th will be given a dividend of $0.72 per share. This represents a $2.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.88%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, March 17th. This is an increase from HCA Healthcare’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.66. HCA Healthcare’s payout ratio is 11.85%.

Insider Buying and Selling at HCA Healthcare

In other news, insider Erol R. Akdamar sold 2,900 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, November 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $353.00, for a total value of $1,023,700.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 6,843 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,415,579. This represents a 29.76 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, SVP Phillip G. Billington sold 3,897 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, November 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $350.00, for a total value of $1,363,950.00. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 52,702 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $18,445,700. The trade was a 6.89 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 1.60% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of HCA. FMR LLC boosted its holdings in HCA Healthcare by 322.3% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 3,141,769 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,276,909,000 after purchasing an additional 2,397,883 shares during the last quarter. Meritage Group LP acquired a new stake in HCA Healthcare during the third quarter valued at approximately $150,548,000. Canoe Financial LP raised its stake in HCA Healthcare by 226,952.9% during the fourth quarter. Canoe Financial LP now owns 231,594 shares of the company’s stock valued at $69,513,000 after buying an additional 231,492 shares in the last quarter. Holocene Advisors LP raised its stake in HCA Healthcare by 210.6% during the third quarter. Holocene Advisors LP now owns 306,796 shares of the company’s stock valued at $124,691,000 after buying an additional 208,015 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Nordea Investment Management AB raised its stake in HCA Healthcare by 29.7% during the fourth quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 843,764 shares of the company’s stock valued at $253,020,000 after buying an additional 193,075 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 62.73% of the company’s stock.

HCA Healthcare Company Profile

HCA Healthcare, Inc, through its subsidiaries, owns and operates hospitals and related healthcare entities in the United States. It operates general and acute care hospitals that offers medical and surgical services, including inpatient care, intensive care, cardiac care, diagnostic, and emergency services; and outpatient services, such as outpatient surgery, laboratory, radiology, respiratory therapy, cardiology, and physical therapy.