Gold Jumps After Israel Attacks Iran
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
2 minutes ago
- Yahoo
STERIS (NYSE:STE) Will Pay A Larger Dividend Than Last Year At $0.63
STERIS plc's (NYSE:STE) periodic dividend will be increasing on the 26th of September to $0.63, with investors receiving 11% more than last year's $0.57. Despite this raise, the dividend yield of 1.0% is only a modest boost to shareholder returns. We've found 21 US stocks that are forecast to pay a dividend yield of over 6% next year. See the full list for free. STERIS' Payment Could Potentially Have Solid Earnings Coverage It would be nice for the yield to be higher, but we should also check if higher levels of dividend payment would be sustainable. Before making this announcement, STERIS was easily earning enough to cover the dividend. This means that most of what the business earns is being used to help it grow. Looking forward, earnings per share is forecast to rise by 59.3% over the next year. If the dividend continues on this path, the payout ratio could be 26% by next year, which we think can be pretty sustainable going forward. See our latest analysis for STERIS STERIS Has A Solid Track Record The company has a sustained record of paying dividends with very little fluctuation. Since 2015, the dividend has gone from $0.92 total annually to $2.28. This implies that the company grew its distributions at a yearly rate of about 9.5% over that duration. Companies like this can be very valuable over the long term, if the decent rate of growth can be maintained. We Could See STERIS' Dividend Growing The company's investors will be pleased to have been receiving dividend income for some time. We are encouraged to see that STERIS has grown earnings per share at 5.2% per year over the past five years. Growth in EPS bodes well for the dividend, as does the low payout ratio that the company is currently reporting. We Really Like STERIS' Dividend Overall, a dividend increase is always good, and we think that STERIS is a strong income stock thanks to its track record and growing earnings. Earnings are easily covering distributions, and the company is generating plenty of cash. Taking this all into consideration, this looks like it could be a good dividend opportunity. Market movements attest to how highly valued a consistent dividend policy is compared to one which is more unpredictable. At the same time, there are other factors our readers should be conscious of before pouring capital into a stock. As an example, we've identified 1 warning sign for STERIS that you should be aware of before investing. Looking for more high-yielding dividend ideas? Try our collection of strong dividend payers. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Forbes
34 minutes ago
- Forbes
UnitedHealth Stock Is Being Dumped By Wall Street—Here's Why
UnitedHealth stock is being offloaded. It just reported billions in profit. Earnings were strong. The story sounded stable. Yet the stock has been sinking. It's trading near multi-year lows, underperforming peers, and reacting poorly to every quarterly release. The market doesn't move like this for nothing. Markets often sniff out risks long before they're made official. The headlines are piling up: government investigations, operational failures, and leadership questions, but the price has already started to discount something deeper. Investors are trained to react to numbers. But when structure breaks, the numbers are often the last to go. This isn't about a soft quarter. The model itself is cracking, and the market sees it. The way UnitedHealth generates earnings, the incentives behind its vertical integration, and the regulatory heat all point to fragility that isn't captured in consensus spreadsheets. The market is whispering what many investors don't want to admit: that something is changing here. And once trust fades, the re-rating isn't temporary. It's structural. UnitedHealth Stock: Big, Profitable, Misunderstood UnitedHealth trades with a market value of about $226 billion, against $400 billion in revenue for 2024, with 2025 revenue expected to reach mid‑$445 billion to $448 billion. Size doesn't really equal a safe company; it often hides the fragility beneath. Most investors can't describe how the business works. They see adjusted EPS. They don't question the mechanics. They assume that anything producing this much cash must be built to last. But what looks durable can rot from the inside. The core of UnitedHealth's engine is vertical integration. Optum decides on care, delivers it, and pays itself. One hand washes the other, all under the same roof. It's efficient when unexamined. But regulators are finally paying attention. When the payer, provider, and data all sit in one unit, it becomes harder to separate health outcomes from billing outcomes. Investors often mistake size for insulation. But complexity cuts both ways. When that model starts to wobble, through government probes, whistleblower claims, or unexplained earnings distortions, it doesn't usually collapse overnight. It slowly leaks. This is what we are witnessing. The price action is the tell. This isn't about sentiment anymore. It's about what the market now knows; the market no longer trusts what it thought it understood. You can see it is undone. Slowly at this point. But it's picking up. UnitedHealth Is In The Crosshairs Of The Regulators The Department of Justice now runs both criminal and civil investigations into UnitedHealth's Medicare Advantage billing, officially confirmed on July 24, 2025. Washington is targeting diagnostic coding and risk adjustment practices tied to higher payouts. A process investigators say may have involved pressure, bonuses, and algorithmic recommendations to staff for certain lucrative diagnoses. At the center is Optum, UnitedHealth's massive care delivery and analytics arm, which assigns diagnoses, delivers services, and influences payer reimbursement. That vertical structure underpinned margin expansion until it became a regulatory vulnerability. Congress and CMS are now eyeing those same incentives for bundled services that may prioritize profit over care. And according to multiple reports, lawmakers are drafting reforms to Medicare Advantage to clamp down on what they see as systemic abuse. This is more than a compliance issue. If enforcement leads to fines or limits on Optum's ability to steer claims, UnitedHealth loses both margin and narrative. The company disclosed a potential settlement cost of $1.6 billion tied specifically to these investigations. For investors, this isn't a question of past performance but future structure. If Washington forces a redesign in how payer, provider, and auditor relationships operate within Optum, valuation multiples change. You won't see regulatory risk on a spreadsheet. It's not in the line items. But it's in every fund manager's head. And the market is already pricing that doubt. Earnings Vs. Trust UnitedHealth keeps beating the numbers. But the market's not cheering anymore, and that should make investors stop to think. Second‑quarter 2025 adjusted EPS came in at $4.08, while GAAP net earnings per share were about $3.74, reflecting a 9‑10% spread. This isn't a one-off. The company has leaned on adjustments for several quarters, removing charges from cyberattacks, restructuring, litigation, and 'normalizing' expense items. Each quarter it gets harder to square the adjusted reality with the actual income statement. Investors have tolerated this because the stock used to respond. Now, even beats fall flat. The post-earnings reaction in July was strong, with headline numbers, and yet shares sank over 4%. It's not the earnings they're questioning. It's the whole premise. When the market no longer trusts the adjustment logic, the premium unwinds. At some point, 'adjusted' starts sounding like wishful thinking. That's a dangerous pivot for a stock that trades on perceived consistency. The issue here is credibility. And when credibility gets questioned in a complex, vertically integrated healthcare giant with active DOJ probes and massive opacity in its internal operations, the path forward narrows quickly. UnitedHealth's numbers still impress. But the market is no longer listening to the numbers alone. It's watching what they're trying to cover. Optum: The Black Box That Powered Growth At UnitedHealth For years, Optum was UnitedHealth's crown jewel. It gave the company vertical integration that most healthcare giants could only dream of. Run the insurer. Own the doctor's office. Control the pharmacy benefit manager. Route the claims. Capture every step of the dollar. Investors praised it as genius. Until now. Optum was built for margin expansion. By combining payer and provider, UnitedHealth collapsed the value chain into itself. But that same structure is now drawing fire. Regulators are asking whether a company can truly manage care outcomes and approve and profit from the services being recommended. This questions their entire integration strategy. What used to be pitched as 'scale and efficiency' now looks like opacity. Good luck getting through an Optum report without needing aspirin halfway. It's all intentional. In a market that once rewarded complexity, investors are shifting toward simplicity and transparency. Optum is the opposite. Here's the rub: the more essential Optum is to UnitedHealth's story, the more exposed the company becomes to scrutiny. Break the chain or just shake investor faith in it and the premium vanishes. Optum was once the crown jewel. Now it's the bullseye. The Cyberattack Was A Wake-Up Call At UnitedHealth When Change Healthcare, an Optum subsidiary, was hit by a massive ransomware attack earlier this year, most investors treated it as a one-off disruption. It wasn't. It was a systemic failure that revealed how fragile UnitedHealth's infrastructure had become and how slow its leadership was to respond. The breach paralyzed billing and claims systems for weeks across the U.S. healthcare network. Providers couldn't get paid. Pharmacies stalled. Patients were caught in the middle. For a company that sells itself on reliability and integration, the collapse of a core system fully exposed them to operational risk. But the real damage was reputational. CEO Andrew Witty's delayed response and lack of transparency during the fallout shook investor confidence. For a business model that depends on centralized control, a failure of this scale felt like the opposite of control. The market didn't punish the stock immediately, but the tone shifted. Since the hack, UnitedHealth stock has lagged peers, failed to respond to buybacks, and sold off post-earnings despite beats, indicating trust erosion. In healthcare, operational execution is the product. And the cyberattack told the market what the earnings couldn't: UnitedHealth may be bigger than ever, but its foundation isn't as solid as the numbers suggest. Defensive Stocks Are No Longer Safe Havens Investors once treated UnitedHealth like a bond proxy. It was dependable, defensive, and cash-rich, perfect in a zero-rate world, but the world has moved on. And the assumptions that supported its premium are unraveling with it. But investors have moved on. Higher rates change everything. Safety no longer commands a valuation premium. If anything, it draws sharper scrutiny. Now, capital seeks efficiency and flexibility. It rotates out of perceived stability the moment cracks appear. That's exactly what's happening with UnitedHealth. It's mainly about multiples. Stocks like UnitedHealth were priced on the assumption that growth would stay steady, margins wouldn't come under pressure, and regulators would remain passive. That's no longer the case. Every part of the thesis, from Medicare Advantage economics to Optum's integration, is under review. And the old multiple doesn't hold under new conditions. At 9 to 10 times forward earnings, UnitedHealth stock is still priced for control. But what happens if growth slows, scrutiny increases, and earnings quality erodes? That multiple doesn't hold when earnings wobble and faith erodes. And that's what we're starting to see. The idea that defensive means safe no longer applies. In a world where capital costs more and scrutiny cuts deeper, structural risk matters more than past predictability. And UnitedHealth is showing investors what happens when they confuse size for safety. Market Behavior Is Telling
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Here's What Analysts Are Forecasting For Service Corporation International (NYSE:SCI) After Its Second-Quarter Results
It's been a good week for Service Corporation International (NYSE:SCI) shareholders, because the company has just released its latest second-quarter results, and the shares gained 2.4% to US$77.83. Results were roughly in line with estimates, with revenues of US$1.1b and statutory earnings per share of US$0.86. This is an important time for investors, as they can track a company's performance in its report, look at what experts are forecasting for next year, and see if there has been any change to expectations for the business. We thought readers would find it interesting to see the analysts latest (statutory) post-earnings forecasts for next year. Trump has pledged to "unleash" American oil and gas and these 15 US stocks have developments that are poised to benefit. Following last week's earnings report, Service Corporation International's five analysts are forecasting 2025 revenues to be US$4.30b, approximately in line with the last 12 months. Statutory per-share earnings are expected to be US$3.80, roughly flat on the last 12 months. In the lead-up to this report, the analysts had been modelling revenues of US$4.29b and earnings per share (EPS) of US$3.81 in 2025. The consensus analysts don't seem to have seen anything in these results that would have changed their view on the business, given there's been no major change to their estimates. See our latest analysis for Service Corporation International There were no changes to revenue or earnings estimates or the price target of US$89.80, suggesting that the company has met expectations in its recent result. There's another way to think about price targets though, and that's to look at the range of price targets put forward by analysts, because a wide range of estimates could suggest a diverse view on possible outcomes for the business. The most optimistic Service Corporation International analyst has a price target of US$98.00 per share, while the most pessimistic values it at US$85.00. Still, with such a tight range of estimates, it suggeststhe analysts have a pretty good idea of what they think the company is worth. These estimates are interesting, but it can be useful to paint some more broad strokes when seeing how forecasts compare, both to the Service Corporation International's past performance and to peers in the same industry. It's pretty clear that there is an expectation that Service Corporation International's revenue growth will slow down substantially, with revenues to the end of 2025 expected to display 2.6% growth on an annualised basis. This is compared to a historical growth rate of 3.4% over the past five years. By way of comparison, the other companies in this industry with analyst coverage are forecast to grow their revenue at 9.5% per year. Factoring in the forecast slowdown in growth, it seems obvious that Service Corporation International is also expected to grow slower than other industry participants. The Bottom Line The most obvious conclusion is that there's been no major change in the business' prospects in recent times, with the analysts holding their earnings forecasts steady, in line with previous estimates. Fortunately, the analysts also reconfirmed their revenue estimates, suggesting that it's tracking in line with expectations. Although our data does suggest that Service Corporation International's revenue is expected to perform worse than the wider industry. There was no real change to the consensus price target, suggesting that the intrinsic value of the business has not undergone any major changes with the latest estimates. With that in mind, we wouldn't be too quick to come to a conclusion on Service Corporation International. Long-term earnings power is much more important than next year's profits. We have estimates - from multiple Service Corporation International analysts - going out to 2027, and you can see them free on our platform here. We don't want to rain on the parade too much, but we did also find 2 warning signs for Service Corporation International that you need to be mindful of. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data
