Health Insurance Stocks Fall After Rough UnitedHealth Forecast

Health insurance stocks called in sick today. 

Pulled lower by UnitedHealth Group’s (UNH) paring back of its forecasts for 2025—the news left the giant’s shares down roughly 22%—the group is dropping Thursday. (Recap Investopedia’s live coverage of today’s trading here.) The S&P 500’s health care sector finished about 0.6% lower.

Several other big insurance firms joined UnitedHealth in the list of top S&P 500 decliners today. Humana (HUM) was off about 7%. Elevance Health (ELV) fell 2.4%, and CVS Health (CVS) slid 1.8%.

The news also weighed on the Dow industrials, of which UnitedHealth is a key member. The blue-chip index fell 1.3%, while the S&P 500 ended slightly higher. (Read more about how the Dow works here — and about how UnitedHealth, specifically, hit the index today here.)

Nine of the Dow’s 30 components finished the day lower, but only two—UnitedHealth and Nvidia (NVDA)—were off more than 2%.

Some other health stocks rose, among them pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly (LLY), which was lifted 14% by drug trial news.

This article has been updated to add closing share-price and market data.