Why Universal Health Services (UHS) Shares Are Getting Obliterated Today

What Happened?

Shares of hospital management company Universal Health Services (NYSE:UHS) fell 10.6% in the afternoon session after the company reported mixed fourth-quarter financial results, where current performance fell short of expectations while its future outlook beat them. 

The hospital management company disclosed adjusted earnings of $5.88 per share on revenue of $4.49 billion, with both figures narrowly missing analyst forecasts. In contrast to the quarterly miss, the company's financial forecast for the full year of 2026 was a bright spot, with guidance for both revenue and earnings per share coming in ahead of Wall Street's projections. Despite the more positive outlook for the year ahead, investors focused on the immediate results, and the negative reaction to the fourth-quarter performance overshadowed the strong guidance.

The stock market overreacts to news, and big price drops can present good opportunities to buy high-quality stocks. Is now the time to buy Universal Health Services? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.

What Is The Market Telling Us

Universal Health Services’s shares are somewhat volatile and have had 10 moves greater than 5% over the last year. But moves this big are rare even for Universal Health Services and indicate this news significantly impacted the market’s perception of the business.

The biggest move we wrote about over the last year was 10 months ago when the stock dropped 9.6% on the news that President Trump criticized the Federal Reserve's approach to interest rate cuts, warning that the pace was slow and could hinder economic growth. Trump's comments added pressure to an already sensitive market, raising concerns about political interference in monetary policy. Meanwhile, Fed Chair Jerome Powell maintained a cautious stance the previous week, highlighting the difficulty of balancing the dual mandate of steady employment and price stability amid the escalating trade tension. Investor sentiment was further dampened by the absence of constructive progress in trade negotiations, especially US-China relations which took a turn for the worse in the previous week. Overall, the outlook seemed more unclear heading into the first quarter 2025 earnings season, as a combination of hard to predict monetary policy and unresolved trade tensions weighed on business confidence.

Universal Health Services is down 6.3% since the beginning of the year, and at $206.04 per share, it is trading 15.6% below its 52-week high of $244.18 from November 2025. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Universal Health Services’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $1,644.

Do you want to know what moves the business you care about? Add them to your StockStory watchlist and every time a stock significantly moves, we provide you with a timely explanation straight to your inbox. It’s free and will only take you a second.