ELV vs. UNH, CI, HUM, CNC, MOH, OSCR, ALHC, TRUP, CLOV, and NEUE
Should you be buying Elevance Health stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Elevance Health include UnitedHealth Group (UNH), The Cigna Group (CI), Humana (HUM), Centene (CNC), Molina Healthcare (MOH), Oscar Health (OSCR), Alignment Healthcare (ALHC), Trupanion (TRUP), Clover Health Investments (CLOV), and NeueHealth (NEUE). These companies are all part of the "hospital & medical service plans" industry.
UnitedHealth Group (NYSE:UNH) and Elevance Health (NYSE:ELV) are both large-cap medical companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, valuation, earnings, analyst recommendations, risk, institutional ownership, community ranking, media sentiment and dividends.
UnitedHealth Group pays an annual dividend of $7.52 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.5%. Elevance Health pays an annual dividend of $6.52 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.3%. UnitedHealth Group pays out 46.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Elevance Health pays out 24.6% 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 increased its dividend for 14 consecutive years and Elevance Health has increased its dividend for 13 consecutive years. UnitedHealth Group is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.
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.
UnitedHealth Group currently has a consensus target price of $570.05, indicating a potential upside of 13.32%. Elevance Health has a consensus target price of $587.42, indicating a potential upside of 13.64%. Given UnitedHealth Group's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Elevance Health is more favorable than UnitedHealth Group.
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 insiders. Comparatively, 0.3% of Elevance Health shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.
UnitedHealth Group has a net margin of 4.05% compared to UnitedHealth Group's net margin of 3.64%. Elevance Health's return on equity of 26.50% beat UnitedHealth Group's return on equity.
UnitedHealth Group has a beta of 0.55, suggesting that its stock price is 45% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Elevance Health has a beta of 0.79, suggesting that its stock price is 21% less volatile than the S&P 500.
In the previous week, UnitedHealth Group had 29 more articles in the media than Elevance Health. MarketBeat recorded 39 mentions for UnitedHealth Group and 10 mentions for Elevance Health. UnitedHealth Group's average media sentiment score of 0.91 beat Elevance Health's score of 0.50 indicating that Elevance Health is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
UnitedHealth Group received 838 more outperform votes than Elevance Health when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 80.51% of users gave UnitedHealth Group an outperform vote while only 66.64% of users gave Elevance Health an outperform vote.
Summary
UnitedHealth Group beats Elevance Health on 14 of the 21 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding ELV and its top 5 competitors to their watchlist. Each company is represented with a line over a 90 day period.
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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