Share prices of some of the country's largest for-profit hospital chains are getting a lift Thursday afternoon amid a busy week of mostly positive second-quarter earnings reports.
Universal Health Services' share price closed up roughly 6% on the heels of its earnings release Wednesday and investor call Thursday morning. The King of Prussia, Pa.-based hospital chain reported a 22% increase in net income to $226.1 million in the quarter compared with the prior year. Its revenue slightly missed analysts' expectations, coming in at $2.68 billion, a 2.6% increase from the same period in 2017.
HCA Healthcare's share price closed up over 5% following its own positive earnings second-quarter earnings report released Wednesday. The Nashville-based chain's net income jumped 25% to $820 million in the quarter, up from $657 million in prior-year quarter. Revenue rose 7.4% in the quarter to $11.5 billion, compared with $10.7 billion in 2017. HCA's volumes were also strong, although emergency department visits were down slightly.
Thursday's biggest winner appears to be Community Health Systems. Its share price closed up by 7.5% just ahead of the Franklin, Tenn.-based chain's second-quarter 2018 earnings release Thursday afternoon. The for-profit hospital chain has been bogged down by its heavy debt load, currently hovering around $13.6 billion. The company recently shaved off $92 million from its total debt through a series of bond exchanges.
CHS last month completed the sale of its 85-bed hospital in Jamestown, Tenn., to a struggling West Palm Beach, Fla.-based company that started out specializing in lab tests and is now turning to rural hospitals to offset tanking lab revenue. Rennova Health was delisted from Nasdaq in October and currently trades on the OTCQB, a market designed for early-stage and developing companies. The company's share price has dropped 91% since May to $0.0009.
