Health insurance stocks are calling in sick today.
Pulled lower by UnitedHealth Group’s (UNH) paring back of its forecasts for 2025—the news has the giant’s shares down roughly 19% in early action—the group is dropping Thursday. (Read Investopedia’s live coverage of today’s trading here.) The S&P 500’s health care sector was recently about 0.3% lower.
Several other big insurance firms joined UnitedHealth in the list of top S&P 500 decliners today. Humana (HUM) was off more than 8%, while Elevance Health (ELV) fell 5%, and CVS Health (CVS) slid 4%.
The news also weighed on the Dow industrials, of which UnitedHealth is a key member. The blue-chip index was recently down about 1%, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite were slightly higher.
Nine of the Dow’s 30 components were recently lower, but only a few—UnitedHealth, Amgen (AMGN), and Nvidia (NVDA)—were off more than 1%.
Some other health stocks were rising, among them pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly (LLY), which was lifted by drug trial news.