UnitedHealth Group (UNH)
Forward P/E 18.08x (SECONDARY) is a +23% premium to the managed-care peer median of 14.64x, but trailing P/E 23.46x sits just below UNH's own 5-year average (~24.9x) after a -62% de-rating (Nov 2024-Aug 2025). Primary revenue growth is flat (+0.4% YoY latest quarter) with earnings stabilising off a depressed TTM base, so the price requires the recovery to continue, not growth to accelerate — fairly priced, with a named value-trap path if medical costs re-accelerate.
What would change this label: A guidance cut or medical cost ratio back above ~90% on the next two prints moves the label to OVERVALUED (value-trap path); delivered adjusted EPS at/above the raised >=$20.50 FY2026 guide with MCR at/below ~88% and the forward P/E compressing under ~15x moves it to UNDERVALUED.
UnitedHealth's share price already crashed once — it fell about 62% from its late-2024 peak — and has only partly recovered. The company is the biggest US health insurer, but medical costs are high and sales growth is almost flat, so profits, not growth, have to do the work from here. At today's price it looks roughly fairly valued: not cheap enough to call a bargain, not expensive enough to call overpriced.
Both lines start at 100 on 2020-09-01. Over the full window UnitedHealth Group returned +31.19% and the S&P 500 +118.28% (price returns; dividends not reinvested). Worst peak-to-trough fall for UnitedHealth Group: -62.0% (2024-11-11 to 2025-08-01). Source: Nasdaq official daily history.
What the label rests on
Forward P/E 18.08x (SECONDARY) is a +23% premium to the managed-care peer median of 14.64x, but trailing P/E 23.46x sits just below UNH's own 5-year average (~24.9x) after a -62% de-rating (Nov 2024-Aug 2025). Primary revenue growth is flat (+0.4% YoY latest quarter) with earnings stabilising off a depressed TTM base, so the price requires the recovery to continue, not growth to accelerate — fairly priced, with a named value-trap path if medical costs re-accelerate. The company’s forward P/E is 18.1× against a peer median of 14.6×. Its own history: Trailing P/E 23.46x vs a 5-year average trailing P/E of ~24.9x (financecharts, SECONDARY) and year-end prints 2021-2025 of 27.39x / 24.61x / 22.36x / 32.34x / 24.95x (Wisesheets, SECONDARY) — current multiple sits just below its own 5-year average after the 2024-25 de-rating.. Sector demand read: Demand steady but cost-pressured: revenue essentially flat (+0.4% YoY latest primary quarter) with the medical cost ratio elevated (88.4% in Q3 2026, company release) — earnings repair, not volume growth, is the story. Latest-quarter sales growth was +0.4% versus a year earlier (SEC filings).
| Company | Price (Oct 27, 2026) | Forward P/E | Trailing P/E |
|---|---|---|---|
| UnitedHealth Group (UNH) | $410.39 | 18.1× | 23.5× |
| ELV | $421.49 | 14.6× | 18.0× |
| CI | $298.28 | 9.4× | 12.3× |
| HUM | $414.85 | 33.5× | 39.2× |
| CVS | $91.13 | 11.2× | 23.9× |
| MOH | $199.46 | 24.7× | — |
| Peer median | 14.6× |
Multiples: stockanalysis.com (SECONDARY, S&P Global data), fetched Oct 28, 2026. Peer set chosen by sector; the median is the middle value of the set. The label and its numbers were recorded in the programme’s label registry on Oct 28, 2026 and will be scored at 6 and 12 months.
Sales, profit and cash
This company does not report a gross-profit line in its SEC facts (normal for banks, payment networks and some health insurers), so profit is shown as net income instead — gross margin is marked UNVERIFIED-absent rather than estimated.
Free cash flow = cash from operations minus spending on plant and equipment, both from the company’s SEC cash-flow statement. Gaps are quarters where that spending line is not separately tagged in the filings — shown as gaps, never estimated.
| Quarter | Sales | Gross margin | Net income | EPS (GAAP, diluted) | Free cash flow |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q/E Jun 2026 2026-06-30 | $112.0B | — | $5.5B | 6.04 | $10.3B |
| Q/E Mar 2026 2026-03-31 | $111.7B | — | $6.3B | 6.90 | $8.1B |
| Q/E Dec 2025 2025-12-31 | $113.2B | — | $10M | — | $160M |
| Q/E Sep 2025 2025-09-30 | $113.2B | — | $2.3B | 2.59 | $5.1B |
| Q/E Jun 2025 2025-06-30 | $111.6B | — | $3.4B | 3.74 | $6.3B |
| Q/E Mar 2025 2025-03-31 | $109.6B | — | $6.3B | 6.85 | $4.6B |
| Q/E Dec 2024 2024-12-31 | $100.8B | — | $5.5B | — | $1.5B |
| Q/E Sep 2024 2024-09-30 | $100.8B | — | $6.1B | 6.51 | $13.0B |
| Q/E Jun 2024 2024-06-30 | $98.9B | — | $4.2B | 4.54 | $5.9B |
| Q/E Mar 2024 2024-03-31 | $99.8B | — | $-1.4B | -1.53 | $401M |
| Q/E Dec 2023 2023-12-31 | $94.4B | — | $5.5B | — | $-6.2B |
| Q/E Sep 2023 2023-09-30 | $92.4B | — | $5.8B | 6.24 | $6.1B |
The last twelve reported quarters. Full 24-quarter history sits in the data pack behind this page. A dash means the figure is not tagged as a standalone quarter in the company’s SEC facts (the usual case is the fourth quarter, which many companies only report inside the full-year filing) — it is missing, not zero.
Earnings: getting better or worse?
Each box is one quarter’s earnings per share (EPS). Green means EPS was higher than the same quarter a year earlier; red means lower; a dash means the figure is not tagged in the filings.
Basis: GAAP diluted EPS from SEC company facts, compared with the same quarter a year earlier.
Key facts
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Company (legal name in filings) | UNITEDHEALTH GROUP INC |
| Chief executive | Stephen Hemsley (source: Business Wire Q3 2026 results release, Oct 13, 2026 (quotes Stephen Hemsley as CEO, UnitedHealth Group); corroborated by Becker's/WSJ reporting Feb 17, 2026 noting his return to the CEO role in May 2025 — fetched Oct 28, 2026) |
| Sector | Health Care — Healthcare — Managed Care / Health Services |
| Share price (Oct 27, 2026) | $410.39 |
| Market value (market cap) | $368.4B — share price times shares outstanding of 897,594,847 (SEC filings; SEC EDGAR dei EntityCommonStockSharesOutstanding (latest)) |
| Sales, last twelve months | $450.1B |
| Net income, last twelve months | $14.1B |
| Free cash flow, last twelve months | $23.6B |
| Latest reported quarter | Q/E Jun 2026 (of 24 quarters in the data pack) |
| Six-year price return vs S&P 500 | +31.19% vs +118.28% |
| Worst peak-to-trough fall | -62.0% (2024-11-11 to 2025-08-01) |
What we could not verify
- Gross profit / gross margin: not tagged as a standalone line in this company's EDGAR company facts (common for banks, payment networks and some healthcare payers) — shown as UNVERIFIED-absent; the page charts revenue and net income instead.
- TTM GAAP diluted EPS could not be summed from company facts because at least one of the last four quarters (typically Q4) has no standalone tagged EPS; trailing P/E is therefore taken from the labelled secondary source in valuation_label.md.
- TTM GAAP diluted EPS could not be summed from EDGAR company facts (standalone Q4 EPS not tagged); trailing P/E is SECONDARY (stockanalysis.com).
- Gross profit / gross margin not tagged as a standalone line in UNH's EDGAR company facts (medical/operating cost lines, not COGS); absent from the primary pack and not used.
- MOH forward P/E (24.71x) comes from a stockanalysis.com search-index snapshot captured during the Oct 27 session (intraday price $198.54 vs $199.46 close) after the statistics page hit a rate limit; other aggregators printed 18.90-21.80x the same day. Peer median forward P/E is 14.64x with MOH as fetched and 12.93x excluding MOH — the label is unchanged on either.
- Aggregator TTM figures (stockanalysis.com: net income $15.88B) run one quarter ahead of the primary pack (through Q/E Sep 2026 vs Jun 2026); primary-pack figures (TTM net income $14.12B) govern.
- Q3 2026 release figures (MCR 88.4%, FY2026 adjusted EPS guide >=$20.50) are from the company's Business Wire release as indexed on Oct 28 — not yet re-verified against an EDGAR-filed exhibit in this Phase 1 pass.
- Guidance record (each quarter scored against the guidance the company gave the quarter before) is not yet compiled for this company — it is a Phase 2 layer. The earnings strip below therefore uses reported EPS versus a year earlier, which is fully sourced from filings.
The IT factor — the most exciting thing the market is overlooking — is not assessed on an X-Ray page. It belongs to the Deep Dive (Phase 2), where it gets the evidence standard it needs. Leadership-era scoring (the six years split by chief executive) is likewise a Phase 2 layer; this page names the current chief executive only, from a sourced profile.
Sources
- SEC EDGAR submissions — Filing index; company legal name.
https://data.sec.gov/submissions/CIK0000731766.json - SEC EDGAR company facts — Quarterly financial spine: revenue, gross profit, net income, GAAP diluted EPS, operating cash flow, PP&E capex, buybacks, dividends, diluted shares.
https://data.sec.gov/api/xbrl/companyfacts/CIK0000731766.json - Nasdaq official daily history — Daily closes for the company; SPY (assetclass=etf) saved as raw/nasdaq_spy_raw.json over identical dates.
https://api.nasdaq.com/api/quote/UNH/historical?assetclass=stocks - Valuation multiples and peer figures — stockanalysis.com (SECONDARY, S&P Global data), fetched Oct 28, 2026; see valuation_label.md in the data pack.
Conventions: earliest-filed value per period, as first reported; cash-flow years-to-date differenced quarter by quarter; EPS never differenced; free cash flow = operating cash flow minus plant-and-equipment spending. This page is a dated snapshot — updates are new versions, never silent edits.