John Rijos, co-president and COO of Brentwood-based Brookdale Senior Living, last week sold almost $900,000 worth of his shares in the company. Brookdale stock (Ticker: BKD) has climbed almost 40 percent in the past three months. Rijos still owns about $10 million worth of the company. Separately, Executive Vice President Gregory Richard unloaded almost $200,000 of stock.

UBS Securities analyst Justin Lake has jumped on the bandwagon touting HCA shares following the hospital giant's strong fourth-quarter numbers. He has raised his price target for HCA (Ticker: HCA) to $35 from $26, which means he sees another 20 percent of upside — even though the stock is up 29 percent in the past month.

Also upbeat — but about shares of Brookdale Senior Living — is Stifel Nicolaus researcher Jerry Doctrow, who has hiked his rating of the nursing home operator to 'buy' from 'hold.' Doctrow's price target of 25 leaves more than 30 percent of upside for investors. Brookdale (Ticker: BKD) has climbed 16 percent in the past three months.

The Georgia-based investment group that's been steadily buying up shares of nursing home chain Advocat for months, last week waded back into the stock for the first time in more than a month. Covington Health Group on Thursday bought 5,000 shares of Brentwood-based Advocat, lifting its stake in the company to 14.7 percent. Advocat shares (Ticker: AVCA) are flat over the past three months and up slightly from a year ago.