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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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For most investors, how much a stock's price changes over time is important. This factor can impact your investment portfolio as well as help you compare investment results across sectors and industries.

Another factor that can influence investors is FOMO, or the fear of missing out, especially with 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 2021 with around 17.1 million members under its medical benefit plans and approximately 7.2 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. It now manages its business through the following segments:

The Retail segment (66% of the company's total revenue in 2021): The segment consists of Medicare benefits, which are marketed on a retail basis to individuals. .

The Group and Specialty segment (6.1%): 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 (27.9%): 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.

In January, Humana inked two separate deals with two third-party financial institutions to effect an aggregate $1-billion ASR program under its authorization, to boost capital deployment. It is taking multiple initiatives like cost savings and others to generate $1 billion additional value to fund the Medicare Advantage business and boost Healthcare Services capabilities.

Bottom Line

While anyone can invest, building a lucrative investment portfolio takes research, patience, and a little bit of risk. If you had invested in Humana ten years ago, you're probably feeling pretty good about your investment today.

A $1000 investment made in October 2012 would be worth $6,730.53, or a 573.05% gain, as of October 5, 2022, according to our calculations. Investors should note that this return excludes dividends but includes price increases.

Compare this to the S&P 500's rally of 159.40% and gold's return of -6.91% over the same time frame.

Looking ahead, analysts are expecting more upside for HUM.

Humana's Medicaid business, buoyed by several contract wins and renewals, has been strongly contributing to its top line for years. Buyouts and alliances place it well for growth. Total revenues for 2022 are expected within $91.6-$93.2 billion. It estimates EPS to be around $25, reflecting a 21% growth from last year. It has been deploying excess capital for the past several years on balance sheet strength. Its financial resilience will continue to boost investors’ confidence. Its solid contributions from the Retail and Healthcare Services units are major positives. Shares of the firm have jumped 21.5% in the past year. However, its rising costs weigh on margins. The market volatility due to labor shortage is concerning. Weak ROE implies inefficient utilization of shareholders' funds. The slashed Medicare outlook poses a threat.

The stock has jumped 5.06% over the past four weeks. Additionally, no earnings estimate has gone lower in the past two months, compared to 5 higher, for fiscal 2022; the consensus estimate has moved up as well.

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