UnitedHealth beats Q1 estimates, raises annual outlook

UnitedHealth rose in premarket trading after it reported earnings results that beat Wall Street expectations and raised its full-year guidance.

For the full year 2026, the company now expects:

Annual adjusted earnings per share to be at least $18.25, up from the previous floor it set at $17.75, and higher than the $17.86 analysts polled by FactSet were expecting.

For the first quarter of 2026, the company reported:

Adjusted earnings per share of $7.23 , higher than the $6.58 the Street was penciling in.
A medical cost ratio of 83.9%, lower than the 85.5% that was expected. The company said the decrease in spending on medical care was "driven by strong medical cost management and favorable reserve development, partially offset by consistently elevated utilization and unit cost trends."

The company, which is the first of its peers to report earnings this quarter, was up more than 6% in early action on Tuesday. The stock is down 3.8% from the start of the year through yesterday's close.

UnitedHealth's rosy report also lifted some of its peers. Humana, CVS, Elevance Health,Centene and Molina Healthcarewere all up in premarket trading.

The sector has been under pressure in the past year as the cost of providing care, particularly for those on Medicare, has gone up. In the first quarter, UnitedHealth was able to grow its Medicare revenues by 1%, despite having about 1,000 less members, by raising the price of its premiums.

“Investors are likely showing signs of relief with this mornings pre-market on UNH. The stock has had a volatile run over its last few earnings reports, largely dictated by surging medical costs in its Medicare Advantage business and regulatory shifts.

"While the stock has struggled for much of the past year, it is currently showing signs of a turnaround, or at least stability that investors are appreciating," said David Wagner, head of equity and portfolio manager at Aptus Capital Advisors. "The highlight of the report for me was the margins.”

Beyond repair?

BYND has had two distinct moments in the sun: one as a bonafide startup stud promising to transform the food industry forever in 2020 and 2021, and the other as a meme-stock, when the company suddenly found itself at the center of a retail trading frenzy last October after a tumultuous few years.

Sparking this latest tick higher appears to be a new product release from last Thursday, when the company revealed that Beyond Immerse, the company's first functional beverage line, had signed a distribution agreement with Big Geyser — one of the country's largest non-alcoholic distributors. That followed an update to its breakfast sausage range just three days earlier.

It's a big ask for a new sausage or protein-packed drinks with fruity flavors — both highly competitive categories — to fully save a company that’s seen sales sink, losses balloon, and its share price crater through the years. But the product news, combined with Beyond appeasing Nasdaq regulators by finally filing its delayed 2025 annual report, seems to have been enough to reinvigorate investor interest, shaking off some concerns about a delisting.

Perhaps most importantly however, is that retail traders are once again fishing in the higher-risk, higher-reward, end of the stock market pond. Risk-on assets have ripped higher in the last few weeks as geopolitical risks calmed, bringing indexes to an all-time high and seeing meme-like stocks soar on speculative excitement rather than business fundamentals. Just from last week, we’ve seen Allbirds and Myseum skyrocket on a surprise AI pivot news. Retail favorites like quantum name IonQ have also caught a bid.

But, where Beyond’s concerned, this ain't 2021 yet. And it's still nowhere near last October, either:

Per Bloomberg data, there’s still plenty of interest in betting against the company — short interest as a percent of the equity float is at 35% — but it still pales compared to the 83% level from its October high.

In simple volume terms, BYND traded only some $224 million as of yesterday — a tiny fraction of October’s busiest day, when $11 billion changed hands.

UnitedHealth beats Q1 estimates, raises annual outlook

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