UNH vs. JNJ, LLY, NVO, MRK, ABBV, AZN, PFE, NVS, TMO, and ABT
Should you be buying UnitedHealth Group stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of UnitedHealth Group include Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Eli Lilly and (LLY), Novo Nordisk A/S (NVO), Merck & Co., Inc. (MRK), AbbVie (ABBV), AstraZeneca (AZN), Pfizer (PFE), Novartis (NVS), Thermo Fisher Scientific (TMO), and Abbott Laboratories (ABT). These companies are all part of the "medical" sector.
UnitedHealth Group vs.
Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) and UnitedHealth Group (NYSE:UNH) are both large-cap medical companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their community ranking, analyst recommendations, dividends, media sentiment, profitability, valuation, earnings, institutional ownership and risk.
Johnson & Johnson has a beta of 0.53, meaning that its stock price is 47% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, UnitedHealth Group has a beta of 0.68, meaning that its stock price is 32% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Johnson & Johnson pays an annual dividend of $4.76 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.1%. UnitedHealth Group pays an annual dividend of $6.60 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.4%. Johnson & Johnson pays out 99.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. UnitedHealth Group pays out 30.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Johnson & Johnson has raised its dividend for 62 consecutive years and UnitedHealth Group has raised its dividend for 13 consecutive years. Johnson & Johnson is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.
Johnson & Johnson has a net margin of 13.22% compared to UnitedHealth Group's net margin of 6.16%. Johnson & Johnson's return on equity of 36.13% beat UnitedHealth Group's return on equity.
UnitedHealth Group received 584 more outperform votes than Johnson & Johnson when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 80.83% of users gave UnitedHealth Group an outperform vote while only 64.84% of users gave Johnson & Johnson an outperform vote.
Johnson & Johnson currently has a consensus target price of $173.00, suggesting a potential upside of 12.08%. UnitedHealth Group has a consensus target price of $601.38, suggesting a potential upside of 24.89%. Given UnitedHealth Group's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe UnitedHealth Group is more favorable than Johnson & Johnson.
UnitedHealth Group has higher revenue and earnings than Johnson & Johnson. UnitedHealth Group is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Johnson & Johnson, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
In the previous week, UnitedHealth Group had 7 more articles in the media than Johnson & Johnson. MarketBeat recorded 21 mentions for UnitedHealth Group and 14 mentions for Johnson & Johnson. UnitedHealth Group's average media sentiment score of 0.68 beat Johnson & Johnson's score of 0.40 indicating that UnitedHealth Group is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
67.9% of Johnson & Johnson shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 86.3% of UnitedHealth Group shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.2% of Johnson & Johnson shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 0.4% of UnitedHealth Group shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.
Summary
UnitedHealth Group beats Johnson & Johnson on 15 of the 22 factors compared between the two stocks.
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.
Skip ChartMedia 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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