Why HCA Healthcare (HCA) Is Still a Buy After Big Earnings Win

We need to talk about HCA Healthcare's (NYSE: HCA) Q3 2025 report, which was released on October 24.

It was a big win.

How big? Analysts' estimates for earnings per share (EPS) were pegged at $5.65 — and HCA delivered $6.96.

If you’ll permit me a sentence that I would otherwise see and think to myself: “Oh, that was clearly written by AI”; that’s not just good — it’s great.

With that in mind, is this a departure from the norm? Not really — it’s the company's 4th consecutive earnings beat. It’s also the third consecutive significant beat.

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But to really understand what’s exceptional about HCA, let’s look at the numbers in the past three quarters when it comes to EPS — $5.79 expected vs $6.96 delivered, $6.29 expected vs $6.84 delivered, and $5.75 expected vs $6.45 delivered.

In those three quarters, the year-over-year (YoY) rate of EPS growth was 42.04%, 24.39%, and 20.34%.

So, in short, it’s quite the streak — and unlike a lot of the other stocks that I try to cover and bring to your attention, this one hasn’t flown under the radar. HCA shares have rallied by 54.38% since the start of the year.

Here’s why it’s not too late to get in on the action. 

For one, our quant rating system, which uses 115 proprietary factors to evaluate stocks, places HCA Healthcare shares in the top 3% of the more than 4,600 stocks that we track. The top 5% of the equities that we track are given a Zen Rating of A — and they’ve provided an average annual return of 32.52% since the early 2000s.

Each Zen Rating consists of 7 Component Grade ratings, which can clue us in on where a stock’s particular strengths lie.

For instance, despite the impressive rally, HCA is trading at a modest price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 17.83x. 

But that’s just one metric — our Value rating factors it in, together with an additional 20 datapoints, for a more complete picture — and through this lens, the stock ranks in the top 15% of equities.

Then, we have our Safety Component Grade rating, which is a measure of stock price and revenue inflow stability — here, HCA Healthcare ranks in the 88th percentile, or, in other words, equivalent to or better than 88% of stocks, so in the top 12%. Financials are another strong point — as the stock ranks in the top 13% in this category.

However, the stock’s biggest strength by far is its Sentiment Component Grade rating. In this category, HCA ranks in the top 5% of equities. 

For one, the earnings beat put the stock back in Wall Street’s limelight — since the report, 11 analysts have updated their outlooks on HCA. 

The revised coverage consists of 7 reaffirmed Strong Buy ratings, 3 reiterated Buy ratings, and a single reissued Hold rating. Some of Wall Street’s top-rated analysts — in particular, Jefferies researcher Brian Tanquilut (rated top 15%) and Andrew Mok of UBS (rated top 22%) share the Street-high price target of $525, which implies a 12.47% upside.

There’s another factor why HCA ranks so highly when it comes to Sentiment. 

In the past 12 months, a majority of the insider transactions tied to the stock have been purchases — 51.04%, to be exact. 

That’s quite a rarity — and it’s a clear signal that management, key company personnel, and key investors alike are aligned in thinking that investing in HCA is a wise choice.

There’s one final piece of the puzzle as to why you should consider adding HCA to your portfolio — and it’s something that, truth be told, I forgot to mention in the part of the article where I usually mention it. I usually mention it in the beginning.

What does HCA do? It’s a for-profit healthcare provider — basically, it operates some 186 hospitals and 2,000 care sites across the United States and the United Kingdom.  

HCA Healthcare belongs to the Medical Care Facility industry, and it’s the 8th highest-rated stock in the industry, which has an Industry Rating of A, and actually ranks as the 20th highest-rated industry out of a total of 145.

So, it’s a pretty good position in a highly-rated industry — but the most important thing to consider is the fact that HCA Healthcare is also the largest business in the industry by far. 

The company has a market cap of $106.52 billion — for reference, the second-largest business, Tenet Healthcare (NYSE: THC) has a market cap of…$18.33 billion, roughly 5.8 times smaller than HCA.

To put it bluntly, HCA Healthcare is the top dog in the for-profit healthcare space — and when dominant players in an industry start hitting it out of the park on a consistent basis, they tend to gobble up the lion's share of the gains in their industry.

Once everything is said and done, there’s really quite a lot to like here. We have a clear upward trajectory, a dominant position in an industry that falls under the nondiscretionary category, and multiple cherries on top in the form of positive analyst coverage, strong confidence from management, and a pretty compelling valuation. 

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