Jim Cramer’s Lightning Round: 8 Stocks in Focus

2. UnitedHealth Group Incorporated (NYSE:UNH)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 150

UnitedHealth Group Incorporated (NYSE:UNH) was mentioned during the episode, and here’s what Cramer had to say:

“I think you have to wait for it to come, that, it is one of those red hot stocks. Jeff Marks and I were talking today about whether to chase these red-hot stocks that do well at a time when things are slowing down. United Health’s up, certainly one of them. I’ve gotta tell you, AbbVie’s another, J&J’s another. I want you to wait because, what’s happened every time it’s spiked is it then goes down. I want you to wait but I think it is the best of breed and that does matter.”

UnitedHealth Group (NYSE:UNH) is a healthcare company that offers a wide range of services, including health benefit plans, care delivery, pharmacy services, and health management solutions. It also provides software, consulting, and information products to various organizations in the healthcare sector. Toward the end of February, Cramer extensively commented on the company as he said:

“Well look, I’ll go over the math of what it does to UnitedHealth. This is gonna be one of those long battles, government may win, may not, stock’s down as if, all the stocks are down as if this is the government really cracking down on them. I hate to say it because I think that there are a lot of people that feel that they, uh, that Medicare billing practices, if you read the article, are wrong. Carl, these companies, they’re survivors. And, uh, you buy this uh, yeah you buy it because UnitedHealth is very powerful. I’ve often felt that UnitedHealth is every bit as powerful as the government. Because they are, strong, sprawling, and ready to fight. And the government has historically not been able to take on this group. They haven’t really taken on the middle-man either. Look I mean we have strong corporations in our country and you know UnitedHealth is not going to have to, in the end, I am telling you that I do not think this is going to be significant to their earnings. That’s what I’m saying.

… Yeah look, I mean again, I come back, why do we have higher payments for Medicare Advantage. I mean this stuff is so opaque. Uh, they, these companies have had a lot of scrutiny against them. You’re gonna need legislation. I don’t think you’re going to be able to do anything with the Justice Department. Civil fraud division by the way. You have the legislation. Then there’s an issue. But when you have these lawsuits it tends not to bring about any sort of practice. Look, I’m not being cynical. I know that there are people that just say how can you not, how can you not think that this is gonna break up everything? Well, I mean, think about the history of the government. Winning against these big companies, they don’t. And I am saying that, down twelve percent, you buy UnitedHealth. We’ll have portfolio managers come on within the next six days, and there’ll be a huge number of people who bought em. Cause well, it’s been these, it’s been these long lawsuits. So I’m just saying, get ahead of it right now.”