Zacks Research raised its estimate for HCA Healthcare’s second-quarter 2026 earnings on Friday, nudging the hospital operator’s expected profit to $7.27 per share from $7.21. The revision landed as the stock opened at $434.58 on Monday, far below both its 50-day moving average of $491.54 and its 200-day average of $486.57.

The call adds to a busy stretch of analyst activity around Hca, with several firms trimming price targets even as most keep a constructive view. KeyCorp cut its target to $510.00 from $550.00 on April 27 and kept an overweight rating, while Leerink Partners lowered its objective to $500.00 from $573.00 and stayed with an outperform rating. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reduced its target to $540.00 from $558.00 on April 28 and kept a buy rating, and Sanford C. Bernstein cut its view to $503.00 from $541.00 while holding a market perform rating. Mizuho, by contrast, lifted its target to $585.00 from $540.00 in February and repeated an outperform call.

HCA’s latest estimate update came after the company reported first-quarter results on April 24 that missed expectations by a narrow margin. Earnings came in at $7.15 per share versus the $7.19 consensus, a shortfall of $0.04, while revenue reached $19.11 billion against estimates of $19.09 billion. That was up 4.3% from the same quarter a year earlier, when the company earned $6.45 per share. HCA also guided fiscal 2026 earnings to a range of 29.100 to 31.500 per share, and the consensus estimate for the current full year now stands at $30.07 per share.

Investors are looking at the stock through a crowded set of numbers. HCA has a market capitalization of $96.41 billion, a P/E ratio of 14.94, a P/E/G ratio of 1.38 and a beta of 1.18. Over the past year, shares have traded between $330.00 and $556.52. The company also said it will pay a quarterly dividend of $0.78 per share on June 30 to stockholders of record on June 16, with the ex-dividend date also set for June 16. That works out to $3.12 annually and a yield of 0.7%.

The tension in the numbers is simple: analysts are still raising and refining earnings forecasts, but they are doing it against a share price that has slipped well below recent averages and against a company that just missed the quarterly profit consensus. Zacks now sees HCA producing $29.82 per share in fiscal 2026, below the current full-year consensus, and has mapped out a run of later estimates that reaches $32.32 for fiscal 2027 and $36.61 for fiscal 2028. For now, Wall Street remains mostly on the Buy side, with 16 Buy ratings, seven Hold ratings and one Sell.