After decades of modest inflation -- for long stretches, barely noticeable in our daily lives -- prices are suddenly soaring at a pace many U.S. investors and consumers have never seen. That 8.5% year-over-year jump in the consumer price index reported by the Labor Department at the end of March was the highest since 1981.
While no publicly traded stock can be expected to be completely immune from the effects of inflation, some are more inflation-resistant than others. One to consider here is Medical Properties Trust (MPW -1.51%).
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This Birmingham, Alabama-based real estate investment trust (REIT) is America's second-largest hospital owner, with about 46,000 beds at 438 facilities in nine countries, primarily in the United States. About half are acute-care hospitals, and the rest are a collection of behavioral health and inpatient rehabilitation centers and urgent-care clinics.
Over the past 20 years, MPW has outperformed the S&P 500, providing a total return of 529.7%, compared with 419.7% for the greater market. Put another way, $10,000 invested in MPW on April 21, 2002, would now be worth $62,970, compared with $51,970 for the S&P 500. 
MPW Total Return Level data by YCharts.
What makes this stock a good prospect for holding up in this new inflationary environment that has no clear end in sight? Here are four reasons.
1. Dividends
REITs are required to pay at least 90% of their taxable income to shareholders. And paying dividends is a long-accepted way to help a publicly traded company keep shareholders interested, especially in inflationary times when securing income can seem an easier path to profitable investing than chasing growth.
Medical Properties Trust raised its quarterly payout by 4% to $0.28 per share in April, marking eight straight years of dividend increases. The REIT sits at a current share price of about $20.36 and is good for a yield of about 5.86%.
2. Pricing power
Medical Properties Trust enjoys the ability to raise the price of occupying its properties. Its 52 operators are bound by triple net-lease deals in which the operator is responsible for maintenance, insurance, and taxes. MPT also is an active provider of investment capital to many of its tenants and can be counted on to raise the interest rate on that financing when it can.
Almost all of its leases include inflation-based or fixed annual rent escalations, and the average lease and loan life right now is nearly 18 years. That provides stability going forward as inflation works its way through the global economy.
MPW Revenue (Annual) data by YCharts.
3. Growing revenue and profitability
Medical Properties Trust also seems to be on a profitability trajectory that's needed to sustain the success it's been seeing. One indicator of this is the company's funds from operations (FFO), considered a key factor for evaluating equity REITs. MPT's adjusted FFO surged to $1.65 per share in 2021 from $1.43 in 2020, and the company is guiding to $1.81 to $1.85 per share for that key metric this year. That -- and a manageable payout ratio of 73.80% based on current cash flow -- should help MPT build on a record of eight straight years of dividend increases.
4. Demand and necessity
Like food and shelter, healthcare is one of those ultimate necessities, especially when it comes to hospitalizations and acute care. Our large cohort of baby boomers is only going to increase that demand as they continue to age. As for inflation, we'll just have to pay more for what we need, and a profitable investment in Medical Properties Trust could be just what the doctor ordered to help ease the pain.
