Here's Barron's from February:
A Different Kind of Hospital Stock
Hurt by a weak economy and worries about cuts in government health-care spending, hospital stocks lost a lot of luster last year.Business is booming.
And Universal Health Services (ticker: UHS) got tarnished right along with the rest. Though up 29% since October, the stock, trading at less than $42 a share, sits 27% below the multiyear high it reached last May and has fallen further than rivals LifePoint Hospitals (LPNT), Community Health Systems (CYH) and HCA Holdings (HCA), as well as the broader AMEX Morgan Stanley Healthcare Provider Index.
But don't be scared. Universal isn't your ordinary hospital operator – a fact overlooked by many investors.
It's the only hospital company that pays a dividend (albeit a modest one). While its peers focus on surgical centers and traditional acute care hospitals, Universal gets roughly two-thirds of its operating profit from a string of psychiatric facilities, and it is outgrowing the rest of the industry.
"At the moment, we are being valued as if we are simply an acute care company, which entirely overlooks how our behavioral health business is performing," says Chief Financial Officer Steve Filton, during an interview with Barrons.com...MORE
Great.
(for the record, the other hospital stocks are also up)
