3 Health Care Stocks for Active Investors
Today’s list of stocks that have pulled back to levels where traders, in the short-term, have been more inclined to buy than sell includes a pair of hospital stocks and a health plan provider newly-off 52-week highs.
Let’s take a look at the hospital stocks first. Shares of Community Health Systems (NYSE: CYH) rallied to new, 6-month highs at the end of February, culminating a five-day streak of higher closes during which CYH gained more than 20%. And insofar as gains like these tend to beg for profit-taking, CYH has pulled back in the days since, finishing lower for the last three days in a row, including a drop of more than 3% on Friday.
The correction in Community Health Systems has helped the stock earn a major, three-point ratings upgrade from a neutral, 6 out of 10, to a “consider buying” 9 out of 10. CYH also has a positive edge in the short-term of nearly one and a quarter percent.
With a short-term, positive edge of nearly 1%, shares of HCA Holdings Inc. (NYSE: HCA) have closed lower for the past four days in a row, and are now technically oversold just above the 200-day moving average. Although crossing above its 200-day moving average in late January, HCA only has been trading consistently above that level for a little over a week. And the fact that the stock is less than a dollar above the 200-day suggests that the stock could slip back into bear market territory even as part of an eventual move higher. This would be similar to HCA’s last, multi-day pullback in mid-February, when the stock traded below its 200-day moving average as part of a three-day sell-off, only to rally for six out of the following seven sessions and gaining more than eight and a half percent.
Pulling back to its first, significant short-term low since climbing back into bull market territory at the beginning of the year, shares of Molina Healthcare Inc. (NYSE: MOH) have finished lower for two days in a row. But pulling back just a bit, we can see that the correction in the stock is much more significant insofar as MOH is also lower for four out of the past five days, and eight out of the last ten.
Molina Healthcare has earned “consider buying” ratings of 8 out of 10, courtesy of a one-point upgrade the stock earned very early in the Friday session. The stock, which traded at new, 52-week highs as recently as mid-February, also has a positive edge in the short-term of more than three quarters of a percent.
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