HCA Healthcare, Inc. (NYSE:HCA) Declares Quarterly Dividend of $0.72

HCA Healthcare, Inc. (NYSE:HCA) announced a quarterly dividend on Friday, April 25th, RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Monday, June 16th will be paid a dividend of 0.72 per share on Monday, June 30th. This represents a $2.88 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.88%.

HCA Healthcare has raised its dividend payment by an average of 11.2% annually over the last three years. HCA Healthcare has a payout ratio of 10.3% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect HCA Healthcare to earn $28.03 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $2.88 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 10.3%.

HCA Healthcare Price Performance

HCA Healthcare stock opened at $327.69 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $80.68 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 14.92, a PEG ratio of 1.10 and a beta of 1.48. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $329.82 and its 200 day simple moving average is $332.15. The company has a current ratio of 1.08, a quick ratio of 0.97 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 69.07. HCA Healthcare has a 12 month low of $289.98 and a 12 month high of $417.14.

HCA Healthcare (NYSE:HCA) last released its quarterly earnings data on Friday, April 25th. The company reported $6.45 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $5.77 by $0.68. HCA Healthcare had a net margin of 8.16% and a return on equity of 586.47%. The business had revenue of $18.32 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $18.26 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $5.36 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts forecast that HCA Healthcare will post 24.98 EPS for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other HCA Healthcare 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 transaction of $3,075,250.47. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 15,412 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,971,757.08. This represents a 38.22 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Insiders own 1.30% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of HCA Healthcare

A hedge fund recently bought a new stake in HCA Healthcare stock. Brighton Jones LLC purchased a new stake in shares of HCA Healthcare, Inc. (NYSE:HCA) during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund purchased 3,402 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,021,000. 62.73% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts recently issued reports on the company. Truist Financial decreased their price objective on HCA Healthcare from $430.00 to $390.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, January 6th. StockNews.com lowered shares of HCA Healthcare from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 9th. Bank of America decreased their price target on shares of HCA Healthcare from $380.00 to $370.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, January 27th. Barclays reduced their target price on HCA Healthcare from $392.00 to $366.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, January 27th. Finally, Guggenheim assumed coverage on HCA Healthcare in a report on Wednesday, April 9th. They set a “neutral” rating for the company. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating, eleven have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $381.67.

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.