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If You Invested $1000 in Humana a Decade Ago, This is How Much It'd Be Worth Now

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How much a stock's price changes over time is a significant driver for most investors. Not only can price performance impact your portfolio, but it can help you compare investment results across sectors and industries as well.

Another thing that can drive investing is the fear of missing out, or FOMO. This particularly applies to tech giants and popular consumer-facing stocks.

What if you'd invested in Humana (HUM - Free Report) ten years ago? It may not have been easy to hold on to HUM for all that time, but if you did, how much would your investment be worth today?

Humana's Business In-Depth

With that in mind, let's take a look at Humana's main business drivers.

Founded in 1964 and headquartered in Louisville, KY., Humana Inc. is one of the largest health care plan providers in the United States. It was organized as a Delaware corporation in the year 1964. It provides health insurance benefits under Health Maintenance Organization (HMO), Private Fee-For-Service (PFFS), and Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) plans. The company also provides other benefits with specialty products including dental, vision, and other supplementary benefits.

It exited 2020 with around 17 million members under its medical benefit plans and approximately 5.3 million members in its specialty product category.

Humana's medical and specialty insurance products allow members to access health care services primarily through its networks of health care providers.

Humana now manages its business through four segments:

The Retail segment (87.2% of the company's total revenue in 2020): The segment consists of Medicare benefits, which are marketed on a retail basis to individuals. .

The Group segment (9.4%): This comprises employer group commercial fully-insured medical and specialty health insurance benefits, including dental, vision, and other supplemental health and voluntary insurance benefits, and also administrative services only products..

The Healthcare Services (3.4%): The segment consists of services offered to the company’s health plan members as well as to third parties, including pharmacy solutions, provider services, home-based services, and clinical programs, and also services and capabilities to advance population health.

Also, there is Other Businesses category that includes businesses, which are not separately reportable because they do not meet the quantitative thresholds.

The company exited the individual commercial business effective Jan 1, 2018.  

Bottom Line

Anyone can invest, but building a successful investment portfolio takes a combination of a few things: research, patience, and a little bit of risk. So, if you had invested in Humana a decade ago, you're probably feeling pretty good about your investment today.

According to our calculations, a $1000 investment made in July 2011 would be worth $5,435.15, or a 443.52% gain, as of July 5, 2021. Investors should keep in mind that this return excludes dividends but includes price appreciation.

The S&P 500 rose 224.88% and the price of gold increased 13.32% over the same time frame in comparison.

Analysts are anticipating more upside for HUM.

Humana's shares have outperformed the industry in a year’s time. The company is well-poised for growth on the back of strong Medicare business, which has been performing well for several quarters. The company’s Medicaid business has also been contributing to its top line for years now. Acquisitions and alliances place it well for growth. Its 2021 guidance impresses. For the current year, adjusted EPS for 2021 is expected in the range of $21.25-$21.75. It has been deploying excess capital for the past many years on the back of its balance sheet strength. Strong operating cash flows are an added advantage. However, its escalating costs weigh on the bottom line. The company is likely to continue incurring elevated costs due to COVID-19 testing. Its weak ROE bothers the company.

The stock has jumped 5.97% over the past four weeks. Additionally, no earnings estimate has gone lower in the past two months, compared to 2 higher, for fiscal 2021; the consensus estimate has moved up as well.

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