Tenet Healthcare's stock price jumped 9% Wednesday as securities firm Susquehanna boosted the system's rating to positive from neutral.
The price leap put Tenet's stock in positive territory for 2016. It ended the day at $31.73, up $2.69 from the $29.05 it closed at Tuesday. Tenet ended a rough 2015 at $30.30.
Last week, Tenet fell out of the Standard & Poor's 500, a blue-chip stock index.
Tenet's stock traded as high as $60.78 last July before investors bailed on signs of flattening volumes from the Affordable Care Act and a steep earnings slide in the second half of the year.
The Dallas-based system's performance Wednesday helped push the Modern Healthcare Hospital Stock Index up almost 2%, more than double that of the NYSE Healthcare Index and S&P Health Care Index. The Modern Healthcare Index is a basket of nine hospital company stocks.
Tenet declined to comment on Wednesday's stock move.
The company's leadership and its board of directors have taken steps to boost earnings and the company's stock performance.
In January, the company acceded to demands by billionaire Larry Robbins and his Glenview Capital Management for new board seats for Glenview executives Randy Simpson and Matthew Ripperger.
Glenview made activist moves after acquiring a total of 18% of Tenet's common shares. Simpson and Ripperger are now on a slate of board members up for re-election at Tenet's annual shareholder meeting on May 12.
Tenet also raised $575 million last month through the sale of its five hospitals in Atlanta to WellStar Health System.
In management changes, Tenet appointed Eric Evans last month as president of hospital operations, replacing Britt Reynolds in charge of Tenet's 84 hospitals. Reynolds resigned.
