How much a stock's price changes over time is important for most investors, since price performance can both impact your investment portfolio and help you compare investment results across sectors and industries.
FOMO, or the fear of missing out, also plays a role in investing, particularly with tech giants and popular consumer-facing stocks.
What if you'd invested in HCA Healthcare (HCA) ten years ago? It may not have been easy to hold on to HCA for all that time, but if you did, how much would your investment be worth today?
HCA Healthcare's Business In-Depth
With that in mind, let's take a look at HCA Healthcare's main business drivers.
HCA Healthcare is the largest non-governmental operator of acute care hospitals in the United States. Headquartered in Nashville, TN, it operates hospitals and related health care entities. At the end of 2024, the company operated 190 hospitals and approximately 2,400 ambulatory sites of care, including surgery centers, freestanding emergency rooms, urgent care centers and physician clinics, in 20 states and the United Kingdom.
It also operates outpatient health care facilities, which include freestanding ambulatory surgery centers (“ASCs”), freestanding emergency care facilities, urgent care facilities, walk-in clinics, diagnostic and imaging centers, comprehensive rehabilitation and physical therapy centers, radiation and oncology therapy centers, physician practices and various other facilities.
The company operates in two geographically organized groups, the National and American Groups. HCA generated revenues of $70.6 billion in 2024.
The National Group (accounted for 27.8% of the overall 2024 revenues) had 55 hospitals located in states like Alaska, California, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia. The American Group (34.8%) has 65 hospitals in states like Colorado, Central Kansas, Louisiana and Texas.
Its Atlantic Group (32.8%) included 62 hospitals located in Florida, Georgia, Northern Kansas, Missouri and South Carolina. The company also operates seven hospitals in England that are included in the Corporate and Other group (4.6%).
The company's 180 general, acute care hospitals with 49,114 licensed beds provide a wide range of services to cater to different medical specialties, such as internal medicine, general surgery, cardiology, oncology, neurosurgery, orthopedics and obstetrics as well as diagnostic and emergency services. The general, acute care hospitals also provide outpatient services such as outpatient surgery, laboratory, radiology, respiratory therapy, cardiology and physical therapy.
Its six behavioral hospitals with 602 licensed beds offer child, adolescent and adult psychiatric care. It also provides adolescent and adult alcohol and drug abuse treatment and counseling.
Bottom Line
Anyone can invest, but building a successful investment portfolio requires research, patience, and a little bit of risk. So, if you had invested in HCA Healthcare, ten years ago, you're likely feeling pretty good about your investment today.
A $1000 investment made in October 2015 would be worth $6,918.76, or a gain of 591.88%, as of October 30, 2025, according to our calculations. This return excludes dividends but includes price appreciation.
Compare this to the S&P 500's rally of 229.79% and gold's return of 232.11% over the same time frame.
Analysts are anticipating more upside for HCA.
HCA Healthcare's third quarter earnings beat estimates. Its revenues remain on an uptick on the back of growth in admissions and inpatient surgeries. Revenues rose 7.2% YoY in the first nine months of 2025. It expects revenues to be in the band of $75-$76.5 billion in 2025. Multiple buyouts aided in increasing patient volumes and added hospitals to the portfolio. It resorts to prudent capital deployment via share buybacks and dividend payments. Its shares have outperformed the industry over the past year. However, a debt-heavy balance sheet induces a rise in interest expenses. Regulatory uncertainty and reimbursement pressure will likely affect future operations. Escalating expenses are expected to strain its margins. HCA's operating expenses rose 6.5% YoY in the first nine months of 2025. As such, the stock warrants a cautious stance.
Over the past four weeks, shares have rallied 9.94%, and there have been 7 higher earnings estimate revisions in the past two months for fiscal 2025 compared to none lower. The consensus estimate has moved up as well.
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HCA Healthcare, Inc. (HCA): Free Stock Analysis ReportThis article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).
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