Valley Wealth Managers Inc. Grows Stock Position in HCA Healthcare, Inc. (NYSE:HCA)

Valley Wealth Managers Inc. increased its stake in HCA Healthcare, Inc. (NYSE:HCA) by 9.5% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 1,515 shares of the company’s stock after purchasing an additional 132 shares during the period. Valley Wealth Managers Inc.’s holdings in HCA Healthcare were worth $455,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of HCA. Atria Wealth Solutions Inc. raised its stake in HCA Healthcare by 28.6% in the 4th quarter. Atria Wealth Solutions Inc. now owns 4,256 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,277,000 after acquiring an additional 946 shares during the last quarter. Truist Financial Corp lifted its holdings in shares of HCA Healthcare by 2.6% during the fourth quarter. Truist Financial Corp now owns 307,753 shares of the company’s stock worth $92,372,000 after purchasing an additional 7,890 shares during the period. CIBC Asset Management Inc lifted its holdings in shares of HCA Healthcare by 3.4% during the fourth quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc now owns 30,420 shares of the company’s stock worth $9,131,000 after purchasing an additional 993 shares during the period. Sanctuary Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in shares of HCA Healthcare by 3.1% during the fourth quarter. Sanctuary Advisors LLC now owns 13,680 shares of the company’s stock worth $4,106,000 after purchasing an additional 407 shares during the period. Finally, Principal Financial Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of HCA Healthcare by 120.1% during the fourth quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 873,775 shares of the company’s stock worth $262,264,000 after purchasing an additional 476,756 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 62.73% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms recently commented on HCA. Truist Financial decreased their target price on HCA Healthcare from $430.00 to $390.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Monday, January 6th. Cantor Fitzgerald reiterated an “overweight” rating and set a $405.00 price target on shares of HCA Healthcare in a research report on Monday, January 27th. Raymond James cut HCA Healthcare from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and issued a $380.00 price objective on shares of HCA Healthcare in a report on Tuesday, December 17th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company lowered HCA Healthcare from an “equal weight” rating to an “underweight” rating and cut their price target for the company from $400.00 to $320.00 in a research note on Monday, November 25th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating, thirteen have given a buy rating and two have given 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 $385.67.

HCA Healthcare Price Performance

HCA Healthcare stock opened at $316.95 on Wednesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $80.28 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 14.43, a PEG ratio of 1.11 and a beta of 1.64. HCA Healthcare, Inc. has a 52-week low of $289.98 and a 52-week high of $417.14. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $313.19 and a 200-day simple moving average of $351.50. The company has a quick ratio of 0.97, a current ratio of 1.08 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 69.07.

HCA Healthcare (NYSE:HCA) last issued its earnings results on Friday, January 24th. The company reported $6.22 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $6.03 by $0.19. HCA Healthcare had a return on equity of 586.47% and a net margin of 8.16%. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $5.90 EPS. On average, equities analysts anticipate that HCA Healthcare, Inc. will post 24.98 EPS for the current fiscal year.

HCA Healthcare Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 31st. Investors of record on Monday, March 17th will be given a dividend of $0.72 per share. This is a boost from HCA Healthcare’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.66. This represents a $2.88 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.91%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, March 17th. HCA Healthcare’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 12.02%.

Insider Buying and Selling at HCA Healthcare

In related news, SVP Jennifer Berres sold 9,533 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $322.59, for a total value of $3,075,250.47. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 15,412 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,971,757.08. This represents a 38.22 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. 1.60% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

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.