Warren Buffett is helping revive shares of beleaguered UnitedHealthcare Group after taking a $1.6 billion stake in the company, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
UnitedHealth shares are on pace for the best one-day percentage gain since 2008, as tracked by Dow Jones Market Data Group. Still, the stock is down more than 50% over the past 12 months.
Investors, taking a cue from Buffett’s interest in healthcare, also piled into Vanguard Health Care Index Fund ETF Shares and The Health Care Select Sector SPDR Fund.
Warren Buffett, chairman and chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., plays bridge at an event on the sidelines of the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholders meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, U.S., on Sunday, May 6, 2019. (Photographer: Houston Cofield/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)
Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway is known for taking positions in businesses it believes will perform over the long term and that have become, in some cases, undervalued.
The healthcare giant has been plagued by a Department of Justice probe and the fallout from the fatal shooting of executive Brian Thompson outside the Midtown Hilton Hotel in New York City last year. The brazen killing turned a critical spotlight onto the nation’s healthcare insurance system. Luigi Mangione has been charged with murdering Thompson.
This 2017 file photo of Brian Thompson was released via Businesswire when he was named Chief Executive Officer of UnitedHealthcare Unit in 2017. (Businesswire / Fox News)
The stock helped the Dow Jones Industrial Average cinch a new record, heading for its first record close of 2025, and gave the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF Trust (DIA) a lift in tandem.