UnitedHealth Plunge Stunned Wall Street. One Analyst Saw It Coming

When CFRA’s Paige Meyer slapped a “sell” rating on UnitedHealth Group Inc. in February, she was the lone analyst out of 30 tracked by Bloomberg with a negative view of the company.

Meyer’s price target implying a 22% fall for the shares glared in a sea of optimistic forecasts, while her warnings on regulatory uncertainty and high medical expenses seemed almost alarmist. The health insurance giant was, after all, an industry bellwether that was widely considered a safe bet by Wall Street, even as it faced rising costs and was recovering from the murder of a top executive last year.