Universal Health Services (UHS) Q4 Earnings Report Preview: What To Look For

Hospital management company Universal Health Services (NYSE:UHS) will be reporting earnings tomorrow afternoon. Here’s what to look for.

Universal Health Services beat analysts’ revenue expectations by 1.6% last quarter, reporting revenues of $3.96 billion, up 11.2% year on year. It was a mixed quarter for the company, with EPS in line with analysts’ estimates but a miss of analysts’ same-store sales estimates.

Is Universal Health Services a buy or sell going into earnings? Read our full analysis here, it’s free.

This quarter, analysts are expecting Universal Health Services’s revenue to grow 8.3% year on year to $4.01 billion, in line with the 7.4% increase it recorded in the same quarter last year. Adjusted earnings are expected to come in at $4.18 per share.

Analysts covering the company have generally reconfirmed their estimates over the last 30 days, suggesting they anticipate the business to stay the course heading into earnings. Universal Health Services has missed Wall Street’s revenue estimates three times over the last two years.

Looking at Universal Health Services’s peers in the healthcare providers & services segment, some have already reported their Q4 results, giving us a hint as to what we can expect. HCA Healthcare delivered year-on-year revenue growth of 5.7%, beating analysts’ expectations by 0.7%, and Tenet Healthcare reported a revenue decline of 5.7%, falling short of estimates by 2%. HCA Healthcare traded up 2.1% following the results while Tenet Healthcare was down 3.8%.

Read our full analysis of HCA Healthcare’s results here and Tenet Healthcare’s results here.

Valuation multiples for many growth stocks have not yet reverted to their early 2021 highs, but the market has been optimistic as of late due to a soft landing. This is an economic situation where rate hikes successfully quelled inflation but did not send the economy into a recession. Furthermore, recent rate cuts and Donald Trump's triumph in the 2024 Presidential election have been tailwinds for the market, and while some of the healthcare providers & services stocks have shown solid performance, the group has generally underperformed, with share prices down 5.4% on average over the last month. Universal Health Services is down 3.3% during the same time and is heading into earnings with an average analyst price target of $233.68 (compared to the current share price of $182.46).

When a company has more cash than it knows what to do with, buying back its own shares can make a lot of sense–as long as the price is right. Luckily, we’ve found one, a low-priced stock that is gushing free cash flow AND buying back shares. Click here to claim your Special Free Report on a fallen angel growth story that is already recovering from a setback.