UNH vs. ELV, CI, HUM, CNC, MOH, OSCR, ALHC, CLOV, TRUP, and NEUE
Should you be buying UnitedHealth Group stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of UnitedHealth Group include Elevance Health (ELV), The Cigna Group (CI), Humana (HUM), Centene (CNC), Molina Healthcare (MOH), Oscar Health (OSCR), Alignment Healthcare (ALHC), Clover Health Investments (CLOV), Trupanion (TRUP), and NeueHealth (NEUE). These companies are all part of the "hospital & medical service plans" industry.
UnitedHealth Group vs.
UnitedHealth Group (NYSE:UNH) and Elevance Health (NYSE:ELV) are both large-cap medical companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, community ranking, earnings, risk, media sentiment, profitability, dividends, analyst recommendations and valuation.
UnitedHealth Group received 858 more outperform votes than Elevance Health when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 80.55% of users gave UnitedHealth Group an outperform vote while only 67.26% of users gave Elevance Health an outperform vote.
87.9% of UnitedHealth Group shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 89.2% of Elevance Health shares are held by institutional investors. 0.3% of UnitedHealth Group shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.3% of Elevance Health shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.
Elevance Health has a net margin of 3.68% compared to UnitedHealth Group's net margin of 3.63%. UnitedHealth Group's return on equity of 26.37% beat Elevance Health's return on equity.
UnitedHealth Group presently has a consensus price target of $627.74, indicating a potential upside of 23.08%. Elevance Health has a consensus price target of $536.53, indicating a potential upside of 39.63%. Given Elevance Health's higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Elevance Health is more favorable than UnitedHealth Group.
UnitedHealth Group has a beta of 0.62, suggesting that its stock price is 38% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Elevance Health has a beta of 0.84, suggesting that its stock price is 16% less volatile than the S&P 500.
UnitedHealth Group pays an annual dividend of $8.40 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.6%. Elevance Health pays an annual dividend of $6.52 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.7%. UnitedHealth Group pays out 54.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Elevance Health pays out 23.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. UnitedHealth Group has raised its dividend for 15 consecutive years and Elevance Health has raised its dividend for 13 consecutive years. Elevance Health is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.
In the previous week, UnitedHealth Group had 122 more articles in the media than Elevance Health. MarketBeat recorded 164 mentions for UnitedHealth Group and 42 mentions for Elevance Health. Elevance Health's average media sentiment score of 1.28 beat UnitedHealth Group's score of 0.89 indicating that Elevance Health is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
UnitedHealth Group has higher revenue and earnings than Elevance Health. Elevance Health is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than UnitedHealth Group, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Summary
UnitedHealth Group beats Elevance Health on 14 of the 22 factors compared between the two stocks.
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New MarketBeat Followers Over Time
This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding {thisCompany.Symbol} and its top 5 competitors to their watchlist. Each company is represented with a line over a 90 day period.
Media Sentiment Over Time
This chart shows the average media sentiment of NYSE and its competitors over the past 90 days as caculated by MarketBeat. The averaged score is equivalent to the following: Very Negative Sentiment <= -1.5, Negative Sentiment > -1.5 and <= -0.5, Neutral Sentiment > -0.5 and < 0.5, Positive Sentiment >= 0.5 and < 1.5, and Very Positive Sentiment >= 1.5.
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This page (NYSE:UNH) was last updated on 1/20/2025 by MarketBeat.com Staff
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