UNH vs. ALKS, MEDP, CI, CNC, CVS, ELV, HUM, JNJ, MOH, and SEM
Should you be buying UnitedHealth Group stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of UnitedHealth Group include Alkermes (ALKS), Medpace (MEDP), Cigna Group (CI), Centene (CNC), CVS Health (CVS), Elevance Health (ELV), Humana (HUM), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Molina Healthcare (MOH), and Select Medical (SEM). These companies are all part of the "medical" sector.
UnitedHealth Group vs. Its Competitors
Alkermes (NASDAQ:ALKS) and UnitedHealth Group (NYSE:UNH) are both medical companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their valuation, earnings, analyst recommendations, media sentiment, institutional ownership, dividends, risk and profitability.
Alkermes has a net margin of 23.30% compared to UnitedHealth Group's net margin of 5.39%. Alkermes' return on equity of 27.52% beat UnitedHealth Group's return on equity.
Alkermes has a beta of 0.47, meaning that its stock price is 53% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, UnitedHealth Group has a beta of 0.45, meaning that its stock price is 55% less volatile than the S&P 500.
UnitedHealth Group has higher revenue and earnings than Alkermes. UnitedHealth Group is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Alkermes, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
In the previous week, UnitedHealth Group had 86 more articles in the media than Alkermes. MarketBeat recorded 89 mentions for UnitedHealth Group and 3 mentions for Alkermes. UnitedHealth Group's average media sentiment score of 1.22 beat Alkermes' score of 1.09 indicating that UnitedHealth Group is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
95.2% of Alkermes shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 87.9% of UnitedHealth Group shares are held by institutional investors. 4.4% of Alkermes shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.3% of UnitedHealth Group shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.
Alkermes presently has a consensus target price of $40.00, suggesting a potential upside of 39.81%. UnitedHealth Group has a consensus target price of $415.57, suggesting a potential upside of 33.24%. Given Alkermes' stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Alkermes is more favorable than UnitedHealth Group.
Summary
Alkermes beats UnitedHealth Group on 11 of the 17 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 UNH 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.
UnitedHealth Group Competitors List
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This page (NYSE:UNH) was last updated on 7/1/2025 by MarketBeat.com Staff
