ELV

The health insurer raised its forecast after a solid quarter, but investors focused on the one business so broken it’s forcing a strategic retreat. If you just glanced at the headline numbers from Elevance Health (ELV), a solid beat on revenue and a bigger one on earnings, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was a good day. Management even raised its full-year profit forecast. But the stock told a different story, plunging 8.5% by the closing bell. What gives? The market looked straight past the beat and saw a five-alarm crisis in one of the company’s biggest divisions: Medicaid. For a current owner, the quarter puts the company’s “diversified strength” narrative to the test. For a prospective buyer, it raises a critical question: Is the damage in one core segment too deep to ignore, no matter how well the rest of the company is doing? On paper, the results looked fine. Elevance reported adjusted earnings per share of $7.45, sailing past the $6.27 consensus estimate. The company felt confident enough to raise its 2026 adjusted diluted earnings per share guidance to “at least $27.” Other segments are pulling their weight, particularly Medicare Advantage, which is on a path to hit an operating margin of “at least 2% this year.” This is the picture management wants you to see: a well-oiled machine firing on most cylinders. But the market is fixated on the cylinder that has completely seized. The company’s full-year Medicaid operating margin outlook remains a stunningly negative “-1.75%.” More concerning than the loss itself is its stubbornness. Management noted that rate updates from states were actually coming in better than expected, which should have provided some relief. Yet, the forecast didn’t budge. As one analyst on the call essentially asked, “Why isn't there a lift if rates are coming in better?” The silence on that front was deafening, suggesting underlying cost pressures are either worse than acknowledged or simply not under control. When you can’t fix a problem, you get away from it. Elevance announced it “reached a mutual agreement with the District of Columbia to exit the D.C. Medicaid market.” More alarmingly, that’s not a one-off. Management stated they “expect to exit additional Medicaid markets over the next 12-18 months where we do not see a path to sustainable performance.” This action goes beyond trimming the edges, representing a strategic...

Elevance Health CEO Gail Boudreaux makes her first purchase since 2025 as shares slump after second-quarter earnings.

UnitedHealth Group crushed Q2 earnings forecasts amid lower-than-expected benefit costs, sending the Dow Jones stock surging past a buy point on Thursday morning. Rival managed-care providers including Humana, Centene and Elevance Health got a sizable lift from the initial warm reception for UnitedHealth's earnings report. Results: UnitedHealth posted Q2 earnings per share of $6.38, up 56% from a weak year-earlier result and 30% ahead of $4.91 forecasts.

Image source: The Motley Fool. Wednesday, July 15, 2026 at 8:30 a.m. ET Vice President of Investor Relations - Nathan Rich President and Chief Executive Officer - Gail Boudreaux Chief Financial Officer - Mark Kaye Chief Health Benefits Officer - Felicia Norwood President of Commercial Health Benefits - Morgan Kendrick President of Government Health Benefits - Aimée Dailey Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Elevance Health second quarter earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session where participants are encouraged to present a single question. If you wish to ask a question, please press star then one on your telephone keypad. You will hear a prompt that you have been queued. You may withdraw your question at any time by pressing star then two. These instructions will be repeated prior to the question-and-answer portion of this call. As a reminder, today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to the company's management. Please go ahead. Nathan Rich: Good morning, welcome to Elevance Health second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. My name is Nathan Rich, Vice President of Investor Relations. With us on the earnings call are Gail Boudreaux, President and CEO; Mark Kaye, our CFO; Felicia Norwood, our Chief Health Benefits Officer; Morgan Kendrick, President of our Commercial Health Benefits business; and Aimée Dailey, President of our Government Health Benefits business. Gail will begin with a review of our second quarter results, the progress we have made against our strategic priorities, and targeted investments designed to strengthen the enterprise over time. Mark will then discuss our financial performance and outlook in greater detail. After our prepared remarks, the team will be available for a question-and-answer session. During the call, we will reference certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are available on our website, elevancehealth.com. We will also be making forward-looking statements on this call. Listeners are cautioned that these statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, many of which are difficult to predict and generally beyond the control of Elevance Health. These ris...

Insurance giant UnitedHealth Group (UNH) is out with its second quarter earnings on Thursday, raising its full-year outlook alongside its reported $112 billion in quarterly revenue. The stock has jumped in Thursday trading. Mizuho Americas healthcare equity strategist Jared Holz takes a closer look at the insurer's stock performance and the role Medicare Advantage had in its figures.

Elevance Health raised its profit forecast and the stock promptly fell. Here’s the one number that explains why investors headed for the exits. On paper, Wednesday looked like a victory lap for Elevance Health (ELV). The company beat second-quarter earnings estimates and raised its full-year profit guidance. You’d normally expect a stock to rally on that kind of news. Instead, shares of ELV dropped 8.5% in a single session, badly lagging peers and the broader market. So what gives? Investors looked straight past the good news and fixated on a single, deeply troubled part of the business: Medicaid. What’s So Wrong With the Medicaid Business? While other segments performed well, management revealed a jarring forecast for its government program for lower-income Americans. The company is holding to its full-year Medicaid operating margin outlook of approximately -1.75%, meaning they expect to lose money on every dollar of revenue from a large part of their portfolio. Management called 2026 the “trough year for our Medicaid margin,” but the market wasn’t in a patient mood. How Bad Is It, Really? Bad enough that the company is starting to walk away. Elevance announced it had reached a “mutual agreement” to exit the D.C. Medicaid market. More pointedly, management stated they “expect to exit additional Medicaid markets over the next 12-18 months where we do not see a path to sustainable performance.” When a company starts shrinking a core business because it can’t find a way to make it profitable, investors get nervous. It signals the problems go beyond a temporary blip in costs to a more fundamental issue with state reimbursement rates and the viability of the business itself. But Didn’t Management Say Rates Were Improving? They did, and that’s the crux of the market’s skepticism. On the earnings call, analysts repeatedly tried to square the circle. One asked why, if state reimbursement rates are getting better, the company isn’t improving its negative margin outlook and is instead talking more about exiting states. The lack of a satisfying answer left a cloud over the entire report. The beat and raise in other areas, like Medicare Advantage, simply wasn't enough to offset the red flags waving over the Medicaid segment. Is this truly the bottom for Elevance’s Medicaid woes, or is shrinking the business the only path back to profitability? What Does The Options Mar...

Elevance Health, Inc. ELV reported second-quarter 2026 adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $7.45, which surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 20.6%. However, the bottom line declined 15.7% year over year. Operating revenues advanced 0.8% year over year to $49.8 billion. The top line beat the consensus mark by 2.9%. The quarterly results were primarily driven by higher premium yields in the Health Benefits segment and increased CarelonRx product revenues. The upside was partly offset by a decline in overall medical membership and an elevated expense level. Elevance Health, Inc. price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | Elevance Health, Inc. Quote As of June 30, 2026, Medical membership of Elevance Health was around 44.9 million, which dipped 1.5% year over year. The decrease was due to the expected loss of some commercial fee-based customers and a decline in Individual ACA and Medicaid membership. The reported figure beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 44.8 million and our estimate of 44.5 million. Premiums totaled $41.3 billion in the quarter under review, which remained flat year over year and surpassed our estimate of $39.3 billion. Product revenues grew 3.7% year over year to $6.3 billion, marginally missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 0.9% and our estimate by 0.5%. Net investment income rose 44.9% year over year to $704 million. The Adjusted operating margin of 3.6% deteriorated 140 basis points (bps) year over year. Total expenses escalated 2.2% year over year to $48.5 billion in the second quarter, higher than our estimate of $46.7 billion. The year-over-year increase was due to higher cost of products sold, operating expenses and interest expenses. The operating expense ratio was 11.1%, which increased 100 bps year over year. The benefit expense ratio increased 80 bps year over year to 89.7%. Health Benefits The unit recorded operating revenues of $42.7 billion in the second quarter, which rose 2.7% year over year and beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $41.2 billion as well as our estimate of $40.7 billion. The segment benefited from increased premium yields. The unit recorded an operating gain of $0.9 billion, which fell 43.8% year over year. It also missed the consensus mark of $1 billion. The operating margin deteriorated 170 basis points year over year to 2.1%. Carelon The segment’s operating revenues rose 6.1% year over year to $19.2 billi...

Elevance Health (ELV) came out with quarterly earnings of $7.45 per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $6.18 per share. This compares to earnings of $8.84 per share a year ago. These figures are adjusted for non-recurring items. This quarterly report represents an earnings surprise of +20.55%. A quarter ago, it was expected that this health insurer would post earnings of $10.68 per share when it actually produced earnings of $12.58, delivering a surprise of +17.79%. Over the last four quarters, the company has surpassed consensus EPS estimates four times. Elevance Health, which belongs to the Zacks Medical Services industry, posted revenues of $49.83 billion for the quarter ended June 2026, surpassing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 2.85%. This compares to year-ago revenues of $49.42 billion. The company has topped consensus revenue estimates three times over the last four quarters. The sustainability of the stock's immediate price movement based on the recently-released numbers and future earnings expectations will mostly depend on management's commentary on the earnings call. Elevance Health shares have added about 21.8% since the beginning of the year versus the S&P 500's gain of 10.2%. While Elevance Health has outperformed the market so far this year, the question that comes to investors' minds is: what's next for the stock? There are no easy answers to this key question, but one reliable measure that can help investors address this is the company's earnings outlook. Not only does this include current consensus earnings expectations for the coming quarter(s), but also how these expectations have changed lately. Empirical research shows a strong correlation between near-term stock movements and trends in earnings estimate revisions. Investors can track such revisions by themselves or rely on a tried-and-tested rating tool like the Zacks Rank, which has an impressive track record of harnessing the power of earnings estimate revisions. Ahead of this earnings release, the estimate revisions trend for Elevance Health was favorable. While the magnitude and direction of estimate revisions could change following the company's just-released earnings report, the current status translates into a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) for the stock. So, the shares are expected to outperform the market in the near future. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 R...

Investing.com -- Elevance Health’s Health Benefits operating profit collapsed in the second quarter of 2026, igniting a broad premarket selloff across the managed-care sector even as the insurer’s headline earnings handily beat estimates and full-year guidance was lifted. Elevance shares are down 6.7% in premarket trade Thursday after the report showed adjusted operating margin fell to 3.6% from 5.0% year-over-year. UnitedHealth Group, which reports its own Q2 results Thursday, saw its shares fall 2.7% in premarket trading, with investors bracing that Elevance’s Medicaid margin deterioration may prove sector-wide rather than company-specific. Molina Healthcare, a pure-play Medicaid insurer, dropped as much as 9% in premarket — the steepest decline among major sector peers — bringing it sharply back from its 52-week high of $244.89 reached as recently as Tuesday’s session. Humana declined roughly 1.7% in premarket, while Centene and CVS Health fell 4.9% and 2.3%, respectively. Elevance posted Q2 2026 revenue of $50.47 billion, up 2.1% year-on-year and beating analyst consensus by 3.9%, while adjusted EPS of $7.45 came in roughly 20% above the $6.21 consensus estimate. Full-year adjusted EPS guidance was raised to at least $27.00. On the surface, those numbers look strong. Beneath them, the picture is considerably more troubling. The headline EPS figure was materially supported by an $0.80 per-share below-the-line benefit that flattered the reported result. Strip that out, and the core insurance business is under significant pressure. The Health Benefits segment, Elevance’s largest, saw operating profit fall nearly half versus the prior year as lagging Medicaid reimbursement rates and an ongoing Medicare Advantage portfolio repositioning squeezed margins. Management had previously guided investors to treat 2026 as a "trough year" for the segment, and the Q2 data validates that warning. With Elevance’s non-recurring below-the-line support and front-loaded profitability, consensus implies a steep deceleration in core earnings power through the second half. Sell-side analysts project revenue to decline 2.3% over the next 12 months, a sharp contrast to the revenue growth posted in Q2. Membership has also been gradually contracting, with the customer base slipping to 44.95 million in Q2 from 45.42 million the prior quarter, even as revenue per member has risen. Pri...

Elevance Health beat estimates for earnings and medical cost ratio, but that wasn’t enough to outweigh concerns about high Medicaid spending.

This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Adjusted Diluted Earnings Per Share (EPS): $7.45 for Q2 2026, exceeding outlook. Full-Year 2026 Adjusted EPS Guidance: Raised to at least $27. Operating Revenue: $49.8 billion, a 0.8% increase year-over-year. Medical Membership: 44.9 million members at the end of Q2 2026. Medicaid Operating Margin Outlook: Approximately negative 1.75% for full-year 2026. Medicare Advantage Operating Margin: At least 2% for 2026. Operating Cash Flow: $1.9 billion for Q2 2026. Full-Year Operating Cash Flow Guidance: Raised to at least $6 billion. Days in Claims Payable: 45.4 days as of June 30, 2026. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 8 Warning Sign with MS. Is ELV fairly valued? Test your thesis with our free DCF calculator. Release Date: July 15, 2026 For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript. Elevance Health Inc (NYSE:ELV) delivered second-quarter results ahead of expectations, reflecting favorable benefit expense performance and disciplined execution. The company raised its 2026 adjusted diluted earnings per share guidance to at least $27, with confidence in returning to at least 12% adjusted EPS growth in 2027. Medicare Advantage performance improved due to deliberate actions, with a path to at least a 2% operating margin this year. Investments in AI-enabled capabilities and Carelon are becoming more meaningful contributors to the company's growth. Elevance Health Inc (NYSE:ELV) is making targeted investments to strengthen medical cost management, member engagement, and provider connectivity, which are expected to enhance long-term performance. The Medicaid environment remains dynamic, with a negative operating margin outlook of approximately -1.75% for the full year. Elevance Health Inc (NYSE:ELV) plans to exit additional Medicaid markets over the next 12 to 18 months where sustainable performance is not achievable. The company is not assuming a material improvement in Medicaid trend in the second half of the year, maintaining a prudent outlook. Elevance Health Inc (NYSE:ELV) is facing elevated cost pressures in categories such as behavioral health, specialty pharmacy, and outpatient surgery. The company is making one-time, non-recurring investments in 2026, which may not provide immediate returns and could impact short-term financials. Q: Can you provide more details on the...

Elevance Health topped Q2 earnings estimates Wednesday, despite falling medical membership, but profit was boosted by one-time "below-the-line" factors and the full-year outlook was underwhelming. ELV stock tumbled, making it among the S&P 500's early laggards. Molina Healthcare, another S&P 500 managed care stock, joined Elevance among the biggest laggards in pre-market trading.