UnitedHealth Group stock, live, through the tokenised share

Signals, right now

One ratio explains most of the share price

The medical loss ratio is the share of premiums paid out as care. A move of one percentage point in it is worth billions, and it is driven by how much medicine people happen to use in a quarter, which management cannot control and can only forecast. Almost every large move in this stock traces back to that number surprising, which is why the realised volatility above concentrates around reporting dates.

It is an insurer and a care provider at the same time

Through its services arm the group also employs physicians and manages pharmacy benefits, so it sits on both sides of a transaction that most companies see only one side of. That vertical structure is the source of its margin advantage and of the political and regulatory attention it attracts, and the two tend to arrive together.

Policy is a price input here in a way it is not elsewhere

Government programmes are a large share of enrolment, so reimbursement rate decisions set in Washington flow more or less directly into revenue. Those are calendar events, published in advance, and they move this stock more reliably than earnings do. A move on the chart above with no company news is usually one of them.

The part we cannot verify

We read the token's price, its traded volume and the value of tokens in issue. We do not audit the custody behind it. The price was checked against the exchange's last close when this page was built and agreed to within one and a half percent. For the official price, use the exchange or a broker.