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UnitedHealth Group (UNH) Stock Moves -0.72%: What You Should Know

UnitedHealth Group (UNH) closed the most recent trading day at $292.14, moving -0.72% from the previous trading session. This move was narrower than the S&P 500's daily loss of 2.37%. Elsewhere, the Dow lost 1.92%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 3.02%.

Coming into today, shares of the largest U.S. health insurer had lost 5.75% in the past month. In that same time, the Medical sector lost 1.77%, while the S&P 500 lost 2.31%.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from UNH as it approaches its next earnings report date. In that report, analysts expect UNH to post earnings of $2.98 per share. This would mark a year-over-year decline of 23.2%. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $63.73 billion, up 5.61% from the year-ago period.

Looking at the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates suggest analysts are expecting earnings of $16.58 per share and revenue of $255.06 billion. These totals would mark changes of +9.73% and +5.33%, respectively, from last year.

Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for UNH. These recent revisions tend to reflect the evolving nature of short-term business trends. With this in mind, we can consider positive estimate revisions a sign of optimism about the company's business outlook.

Research indicates that these estimate revisions are directly correlated with near-term share price momentum. Investors can capitalize on this by using the Zacks Rank. This model considers these estimate changes and provides a simple, actionable rating system.

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. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate remained stagnant. UNH is currently a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

Digging into valuation, UNH currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 17.74. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 14.24, so we one might conclude that UNH is trading at a premium comparatively.

Investors should also note that UNH has a PEG ratio of 1.4 right now. 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 was holding an average PEG ratio of 1.33 at yesterday's closing price.

The Medical - HMOs industry is part of the Medical sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 31, putting it in the top 13% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank gauges the strength of our 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.

You can find more information on all of these metrics, and much more, on Zacks.com.


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