UnitedHealth positioned to outperform in 2019, says Piper Jaffray

Piper Jaffray analyst Sarah James said there “was so much focus” on UnitedHealth’s (UNH) earnings call on its medical loss ratio, or MLR, that it pressured the stock early in the day, but she is not concerned. When accounting for adjustments and if one accounts for some Medicaid pressure, UnitedHealth had some improvement in MA or commercial, which could be positive for Humana (HUM) or Anthem (ANTM), according to James. UnitedHealth was also clear in post call conversation that Medicaid headwinds in 2018/19 were largely company specific, which James said leaves her feeling good heading into earnings from Centene (CNC), Molina Healthcare (MOH) and WellCare (WCG). She reiterates her Overweight rating on UnitedHealth, as James sees potential for upside to her earnings estimates and believes the stock is positioned to outperform the group in 2019 as investors move to safer positions.
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