HCA Healthcare, Inc. (NYSE:HCA) investors will be delighted, with the company turning in some strong numbers with its latest results. The company beat expectations with revenues of US$20b arriving 2.7% ahead of forecasts. Statutory earnings per share (EPS) were US$7.27, 7.0% ahead of estimates. Earnings are an important time for investors, as they can track a company's performance, look at what the analysts are forecasting for next year, and see if there's been a change in sentiment towards the company. So we collected the latest post-earnings statutory consensus estimates to see what could be in store for next year.
Taking into account the latest results, the current consensus from HCA Healthcare's 22 analysts is for revenues of US$81.6b in 2027. This would reflect a reasonable 3.7% increase on its revenue over the past 12 months. Statutory per share are forecast to be US$31.58, approximately in line with the last 12 months. Yet prior to the latest earnings, the analysts had been anticipated revenues of US$81.6b and earnings per share (EPS) of US$32.34 in 2027. So it looks like there's been a small decline in overall sentiment after the recent results - there's been no major change to revenue estimates, but the analysts did make a minor downgrade to their earnings per share forecasts.
View our latest analysis for HCA Healthcare
The consensus price target held steady at US$470, with the analysts seemingly voting that their lower forecast earnings are not expected to lead to a lower stock price in the foreseeable future. It could also be instructive to look at the range of analyst estimates, to evaluate how different the outlier opinions are from the mean. The most optimistic HCA Healthcare analyst has a price target of US$550 per share, while the most pessimistic values it at US$380. These price targets show that analysts do have some differing views on the business, but the estimates do not vary enough to suggest to us that some are betting on wild success or utter failure.
Of course, another way to look at these forecasts is to place them into context against the industry itself. It's pretty clear that there is an expectation that HCA Healthcare's revenue growth will slow down substantially, with revenues to the end of 2027 expected to display 3.0% growth on an annualised basis. This is compared to a historical growth rate of 6.6% over the past five years. By way of comparison, the other companies in this industry with analyst coverage are forecast to grow their revenue at 5.1% per year. Factoring in the forecast slowdown in growth, it seems obvious that HCA Healthcare is also expected to grow slower than other industry participants.
The Bottom Line
The biggest concern is that the analysts reduced their earnings per share estimates, suggesting business headwinds could lay ahead for HCA Healthcare. Fortunately, the analysts also reconfirmed their revenue estimates, suggesting that it's tracking in line with expectations. Although our data does suggest that HCA Healthcare's revenue is expected to perform worse than the wider industry. The consensus price target held steady at US$470, with the latest estimates not enough to have an impact on their price targets.
Following on from that line of thought, we think that the long-term prospects of the business are much more relevant than next year's earnings. At Simply Wall St, we have a full range of analyst estimates for HCA Healthcare going out to 2028, and you can see them free on our platform here..
It is also worth noting that we have found 2 warning signs for HCA Healthcare (1 doesn't sit too well with us!) that you need to take into consideration.
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