Why UnitedHealth Stock Shot Higher on Tuesday

Big insurer (NYSE: UNH) was the very picture of health, at least as far as its stock was concerned on Tuesday. Its price rose by a sprightly 3.3% that day, well eclipsing the 0.7% rise of the S 500 index. This followed an analyst's recommendation upgrade. While we should never solely base our investment decisions on analyst moves, they do often impact the prices of stocks when they occur.

Well before market open on Tuesday, Bernstein prognosticator Lance Wilkes pushed his UnitedHealth recommendation up one peg to outperform (read: buy) from his preceding market perform (hold). The insurance company's price target also got an upgrade, with Wilkes moving it to $603 per share from $595. 

Wilkes' previous lukewarm take was based, he wrote, on his expectation of rising utilization of health insurance policies this year, in addition to movement on Medicare Advantage rates. According to him, though, today most of those factors are already priced into the stock.

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Source Fool.com