Market Currents

• Tuesday, November 3, 2009

• 13:06 PM Senate probe finds U.S. health insurers (AET, CI, CVH, HUM, UNH, WLP) are spending considerably less of their premiums on medical care than official industry estimates - an average of $0.70/dollar instead of the $0.87 cited by AHIP. The report also singles out Cigna for mislabeling $5B worth of clients. Sen. Jay Rockefeller: "While health-care costs are spiraling upwards, consumers are paying more and getting less, and the health insurance industry doesn't want anyone to know what they are up to." 9 Comments

• Thursday, October 22, 2009

• 15:52 PM Health insurer stocks spike again, on news that critical health-reform swing vote Olympia Snowe says she won't support immediately creating a public insurance option. WellPoint (WLP) +1.9%; UnitedHealth (UNH) +2.6%; Aetna (AET) +1.2%; Humana (HUM) +2.1%; Cigna (CI) +2.9%. 1 Comment

• Tuesday, October 20, 2009

• 09:00 AM Premarket gainers: MPS +22%. BPAX +11%. LXK +9%. IRE +8%. AAPL +6%. NVAX +5%. CAT +6%. UAUA +6%. MGM +5%. HGSI +5%. UNH +4%. BK +5%. PH +5%. AIB +4%. PSO +4%. BTU +4%.
  Losers: MI -8%. FRE -7%. BSX -7%. Comment!
• 06:25 AM UnitedHealth (UNH): Q3 EPS of $0.89 beats by $0.12. Revenue of $21.7B (+7.6%) vs. $21.56B. (PR) Comment!
• 00:05 AM Notable pre-market earnings: ALV, BK, BIIB, BLK, BTU, CAT, CMA, COH, DGX, DRH, DD, EAT, FRX, GAP, ITW, JEF, JRN, KO, LXK, LMT, MTB, PCP, PH, PFE, RF, SHW, STT, SVU, UAUA, UNH, UTX, WU Comment!

• Tuesday, October 13, 2009

• 15:58 PM Health insurer shares have tanked further after the Senate Finance Committee approves the Baucus healthcare bill 14-9. Aetna (AET) down 3.3%; UnitedHealth (UNH) down 3.6%; WellPoint (WLP) down 0.5%; Humana (HUM) down 1.1%; Cigna (CI) down 3.1%. Comment!

• Thursday, October 8, 2009

• 13:37 PM Health insurer stocks are suffering today after the Senate's reform bill gets a boost from a Congressional Budget Office report saying the bill would cut the budget deficit by $81B over 10 years. Wellpoint (WLP) -7.1%, UnitedHealth (UNH) -4.7%, Aetna (AET) -5%, Humana (HUM) -5.4%, Cigna (CI) -4%. (CBO letter to Baucus, .pdf) 2 Comments

• Tuesday, September 29, 2009

• 15:26 PM Managed-care stocks spiked up after a Senate committee rejected a public health insurance option amendment, but have since given back some gains. Now: Aetna (AET) down 1.7%; Humana (HUM) up 2%; UnitedHealth (UNH) up 0.9%; WellPoint (WLP) down 0.7%. Comment!

• Tuesday, September 8, 2009

• 09:39 AM Just 13 of the newsletters Mark Hulbert follows, or about 7%, managed to beat the market during both the bull and bear markets. These geniuses' top picks include Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A), Coca-Cola (KO), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Microsoft (MSFT), UnitedHealth (UNH) and Wal-Mart (WMT). 1 Comment

• Tuesday, July 21, 2009

• 06:41 AM Unitedhealth Group (UNH): Q2 EPS of $0.73 beats by $0.03. Revenue of $22B (+6.8%) in-line. (PR) Comment!
• 00:05 AM Notable earnings before Tuesday's open: AKS, ALV, AMTD, BJS, BTU, CAL, CAT, CMA, DD, DGX, ELN, FCX, FRX, HCBK, JEF, KO, LMT, LUV, LXK, MRK, PCP, RF, SGP, SHW, STT, UAUA, UNH, UTX, WU Comment!

• Thursday, July 16, 2009

• 09:10 AM UnitedHealth (UNH) and Cisco (CSCO) are teaming up to build a multi-million dollar open network linking doctors and patients across the country via video and medical-information technology. The 'telehealth' market is expected to reach over $6B by 2012. Comment!

• Tuesday, July 14, 2009

• 08:18 AM The Department of Defense awards billion-dollar health-care contracts to Aetna (AET) and UnitedHealth (UNH), who will take over from rivals Health Net (HNT) and Humana (HUM). Health Net and Humana may protest the decision. Comment!

• Thursday, June 11, 2009

• 09:30 AM UnitedHealth Group (UNH) down 6.8% premarket after downgrades from Citigroup and Oppenheimer, who notes UNH is relying on an aggressive Medicare bidding strategy that may be overestimating a drop in physician's costs in 2010. Comment!
• 09:01 AM Premarket gainers: HGSI +23%. CPST +20%. EMKR +10%. DLM +10%. ESLR +7%. NMR +6%. RBS +6%. AIB +4%. BCS +4%. SAY +4%. RF +4%. LEA +4%.
  Losers: AGEN -9%. LULU -8%. UNH -7%. EVEP -6%. CTIC -7%. MI -7%. FNB -5%. SQNM -5%. LVLT -4%. JASO -4% Comment!

• Saturday, May 16, 2009

• 17:38 PM When Buffett (BRK.A) boasted about his confidence in Wells Fargo (WFC) recently, he was really talking his book. A 13-F filed yesterday reveals the Oracle bought another 12M shares of WFC during Q1. He also increased his stake in Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and U.S. Bancorp (USB), and trimmed his holdings of UnitedHealth (UNH). 4 Comments