HCA Healthcare (HCA)
Healthcare · NYSE · US
Fundamentals
Valuation and ratings
HCA Healthcare trades at $385.74, which is 87% below the $721.40 our discounted cash flow model puts on the business. On that measure alone it screens as undervalued, though a DCF is an argument rather than a measurement, and the market is frequently right about why something is cheap.
Our moat model scores it 43 out of 100, which is little in the way of a moat. A moat is a structural reason competitors cannot take the profits away, and it matters more to a long holding period than any single quarter's numbers do.
It changes hands at 14.0 times earnings. Be careful reading that in isolation: for a cyclical business a low P/E arrives at the top of the cycle, when profits are peaking and about to fall, which is exactly when the shares look cheapest and are not.
About HCA Healthcare
HCA Healthcare, Inc., through its subsidiaries, provides health care services in the United States. The company owns, manages, and operates hospitals, ASCs, freestanding emergency care facilities, urgent care facilities, walk-in clinics, diagnostic and imaging centers, radiation and oncology therapy centers, as well as rehabilitation and physical therapy centers, physician practices, home health agencies, hospices, outpatient physical therapy providers, home and community-based services providers, and various other facilities. Its general and acute care hospitals offer medical and surgical services, including inpatient care, intensive care, cardiac care, diagnostic services, and emergency services; and outpatient services, such as outpatient surgery, laboratory, radiology, respiratory therapy, cardiology, and physical therapy. The company was formerly known as HCA Holdings, Inc. HCA Healthcare, Inc. was founded in 1968 and is headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee.
HCA passes 2 of our 30 screens today
Each screen prints the exact criteria it used, and the circumstances in which it is wrong.
Smart money ownership
19 of the funds we track reported a position in their latest SEC 13F filing. Largest first:
- Lewis Sanders, Sanders Capital, LLC$4.24B · 5.0% of book
- First Eagle, First Eagle Investment Management, LLC$1.54B · 2.6% of book
- Arrowstreet Capital, ARROWSTREET CAPITAL, LIMITED PARTNERSHIP$1.02B · 0.6% of book
- Andreas Halvorsen, VIKING GLOBAL INVESTORS LP$508.80M · 1.4% of book
- Lyrical Asset Management, LYRICAL ASSET MANAGEMENT LP$316.43M · 4.8% of book
A word of warning on reading these figures: a 13F reports the market value of a holding, so a fund that traded nothing at all still appears to have sold when the price fell. We found 102 companies where the standard reading gives the opposite answer. Only the share count is honest.
Common questions
Is HCA Healthcare (HCA) undervalued?
Against our discounted cash flow estimate of $721.40, HCA at $385.74 is 87% below fair value. That is one model's answer, not a recommendation, and most of a DCF's output sits in a terminal value nobody can forecast.
Which funds own HCA?
19 of the institutions we track reported a position in HCA in their most recent SEC 13F filing. A 13F is filed up to 45 days after quarter end, so it tells you what a fund held then, not what it holds now.
What is HCA's P/E ratio?
HCA trades at 14.0 times earnings. A low P/E is not automatically cheap: on a cyclical company it is usually a warning that earnings are at a peak.
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Data from company filings, exchange quotes and SEC EDGAR 13F disclosures. Quotes are delayed. Metrics we do not have are left out rather than estimated. Educational information, not financial advice.