UNH vs. ELV, JNJ, MRK, ABBV, NVO, AZN, TMO, NVS, ABT, and PFE
Should you be buying UnitedHealth Group stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of UnitedHealth Group include Elevance Health (ELV), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Merck & Co., Inc. (MRK), AbbVie (ABBV), Novo Nordisk A/S (NVO), AstraZeneca (AZN), Thermo Fisher Scientific (TMO), Novartis (NVS), Abbott Laboratories (ABT), and Pfizer (PFE). These companies are all part of the "medical" sector.
UnitedHealth Group (NYSE:UNH) and Elevance Health (NYSE:ELV) are both large-cap medical companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their risk, valuation, profitability, media sentiment, earnings, dividends, analyst recommendations, community ranking and institutional ownership.
87.9% of UnitedHealth Group shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 89.2% of Elevance Health shares are held by institutional investors. 0.4% of UnitedHealth Group shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.4% of Elevance Health shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
UnitedHealth Group currently has a consensus target price of $569.68, indicating a potential upside of 15.52%. Elevance Health has a consensus target price of $569.00, indicating a potential upside of 8.34%. Given UnitedHealth Group's higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe UnitedHealth Group is more favorable than Elevance Health.
In the previous week, UnitedHealth Group had 61 more articles in the media than Elevance Health. MarketBeat recorded 91 mentions for UnitedHealth Group and 30 mentions for Elevance Health. Elevance Health's average media sentiment score of 0.81 beat UnitedHealth Group's score of 0.56 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.
UnitedHealth Group has a beta of 0.54, meaning that its stock price is 46% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Elevance Health has a beta of 0.78, meaning that its stock price is 22% less volatile than the S&P 500.
UnitedHealth Group has a net margin of 4.05% compared to Elevance Health's net margin of 3.49%. UnitedHealth Group's return on equity of 26.50% beat Elevance Health's return on equity.
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 1.2%. UnitedHealth Group pays out 46.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Elevance Health pays out 25.9% 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 received 844 more outperform votes than Elevance Health when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 80.53% of users gave UnitedHealth Group an outperform vote while only 66.42% of users gave Elevance Health an outperform vote.
Summary
UnitedHealth Group beats Elevance Health on 13 of the 19 factors compared between the two stocks.
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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.
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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