UnitedHealth Group (UNH) Gains As Market Dips: What You Should Know
UnitedHealth Group (UNH) closed the most recent trading day at $517.68, moving +0.26% from the previous trading session. This move outpaced the S&P 500's daily loss of 0.41%.
Prior to today's trading, shares of the largest U.S. health insurer had lost 3.77% over the past month. This has was narrower than the Medical sector's loss of 6.22% and the S&P 500's loss of 5.13% in that time.
Investors will be hoping for strength from UnitedHealth Group as it approaches its next earnings release. In that report, analysts expect UnitedHealth Group to post earnings of $5.47 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 21.02%. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $80.71 billion, up 11.58% from the year-ago period.
For the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $21.88 per share and revenue of $322.11 billion, which would represent changes of +15.04% and +12%, respectively, from the prior year.
Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for UnitedHealth Group. These recent revisions tend to reflect the evolving nature of short-term business trends. As such, positive estimate revisions reflect analyst optimism about the company's business and profitability.
Based on our research, we believe these estimate revisions are directly related to near-team stock moves. We developed the Zacks Rank to capitalize on this phenomenon. Our system takes these estimate changes into account and delivers a clear, actionable rating model.
The Zacks Rank system ranges from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell). It has a remarkable, outside-audited track record of success, with #1 stocks delivering an average annual return of +25% since 1988. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection remained stagnant. UnitedHealth Group currently has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).
Looking at its valuation, UnitedHealth Group is holding a Forward P/E ratio of 23.6. This represents a premium compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 19.24.
Also, we should mention that UNH has a PEG ratio of 1.6. This popular metric is similar to the widely-known P/E ratio, with the difference being that the PEG ratio also takes into account the company's expected earnings growth rate. The Medical - HMOs industry currently had an average PEG ratio of 1.15 as of yesterday's close.
The Medical - HMOs industry is part of the Medical sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 158, which puts it in the bottom 38% of all 250+ industries.
The Zacks Industry Rank gauges the strength of our individual industry groups by measuring the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks within the groups. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.
Be sure to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and many more, on Zacks.com.
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