Down 9% in a Day, Is This Dividend Stock in Trouble?
One of the largest U.S. healthcare real estate investment trusts (REITs), Ventas (NYSE: VTR) has a long history of success behind it. In today's market, though, investors appear to have taken a "what have you done for me lately?" view of things. So the stock sold off sharply when Ventas highlighted a change in fortunes in a key business segment during its third-quarter conference call. What's going on, and is the news really so bad?
To be fair, Ventas set itself up for this one. During recent company presentations, it has made a grand show of how it was "pivoting to growth" in 2020. That was based on a couple of big trends. First, Ventas has been rebalancing its portfolio in recent years. It spun off its nursing home business, which was heavily exposed to Medicare and Medicaid spending changes. Luckily for Ventas shareholders, it got out of the sector before nursing homes started to struggle. The same can't be said of peer Healthpeak Properties (NYSE: HCP), formerly known as just HCP, which only spun off its nursing homes after the segment's results started to hit the skids.
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