Healthiest Hospital Stock: Tenet Tops Poll
NEW YORK (
) -- This week, TheStreet.com asked its users: "Which hospital stock do you think will benefit most from healthcare reform and the upcoming swine-flu season?"
And from the looks of things, there's a clear winner. Operations like
LifePoint Hospitals
(LPNT)
,
Universal Health Services
(UHS) - Get Report
and
Community Health Systems
(CYH) - Get Report
received a few nods, racking up 5.4%, 12.2% and 14.1% of the vote, each.
Health Management Associates
(HMA)
put on a better showing, producing 21.5% of the vote.
But in the end,
Tenet Healthcare
(THC) - Get Report
managed to amass a solid 46.8% of the vote total.
In truth, the results shouldn't be all that surprising, coming during the same week that Tenet raised its
adjusted EBITDA outlook for 2009 due to a smattering of better summer results.
Shares in the company were losing 11 cents at $5.66 on Friday afternoon, but have surged by more than 390% since the year began.
Many in the hospital sector, however, got a boost on Wednesday after Democratic Senator Max Baucus released his long-awaited version of the health care reform bill, in part mandating all individuals to get health insurance. LifePoint jumped 26 cents to $26.14 on the same day, while Health Management Associates went higher by 21 cents to $8.17. Tenet changed hands at $5.95 by the closing bell on Wednesday after adding 21 cents.
-- Written by Sung Moss in New York
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