How UnitedHealth Became the Worst Dow Stock of 2025

It's that time of the year again, when investors are rebalancing their portfolios and setting new strategies for the year ahead. We already dove into the best Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) and S&P 500 Index (SPX) stocks of 2025, but now it's time to talk about the elephant in the room: the underperformers.

The worst performer on the Dow this year is UnitedHealth Group Inc (NYSE:UNH). The healthcare company has been mired in controversy since December 2024, following the murder of CEO Brian Thompson. A surprise earnings miss in April and lowered full-year outlook due to higher-than-expected medical costs knocked the stock off the $600 level.

Despite rally attempts later in the year, the shares lost steam at $325 and gapped to their lowest level since April 2020. Last seen trading at $324.13, UNH is pacing for its seventh-straight loss, on track to close out 2025 with only five monthly wins under its belt. So far this year, the security has shed more than 35%.

Despite this underperformance, short-term options traders lean bullish. This is per UNH's Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio (SOIR) that ranks higher than only 4% of annual readings. An unwinding of this optimism could generate additional headwinds for the equity moving forward.

UnitedHealth stock also sports a Schaeffer's Volatility Index (SVI) of 30% that sits in the 19th percentile of its annual range, suggesting near-term option traders are pricing in low volatility expectations. It's also worth mentioning that UNH tended to outperform volatility expectations in the last year, per its Schaeffer's Volatility Scorecard (SVS) of 99 out of 100.