Jim Cramer Says UnitedHealth Group (UNH) is the 'Best' Insurance Stock to Buy

We recently published a list of 10 Stocks to Watch as Trade Wars Begin. In this article, we are going to take a look at where UnitedHealth Group Inc (NYSE:UNH) stands against other stocks to watch as trade wars begin.

Bill Strazzullo, Bell Curve Trading chief market strategist, said in a latest program on CNBC that the market isn’t done going down and urged investors not to buy every dip and wait for real opportunities. The analyst made some specific predictions about the market bottom:

“Still think it’s not over. I think you know probably across the board it’s another 15% to go to the downside. Look, the top wasn’t that difficult to call. It really wasn’t. And I think the bottom, typically on these major trends when they roll over, they do the same thing. They mean revert to fair value, which is a fancy way of saying that the market should drop down to where most of the trade activity has taken place on the major trend, which is the rally off the March 2020 lows.”

Strazzullo thinks the S&P 500 could fall to 4,500 to 4,100 before seeing a bottom. He repeatedly said during the interview that the market’s gains from the pandemic days are “tapped out.”

“The key driver here was the rally off the March 2020 lows in the height of the pandemic when we knew we were going to get historic monetary and fiscal stimulus. If you knew that, that was the right trend, you could have known months in advance when the market was going to top out. I gave the targets months in advance. If you missed this fundamentally or technically, you were asleep at the switch.”

READ ALSO: 7 Best Stocks to Buy For Long-Term and 8 Cheap Jim Cramer Stocks to Invest In.

For this article, we picked 10 stocks Wall Street is closely watching amid the US-China trade war. With each stock, we have mentioned the number of hedge fund investors. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here).

UnitedHealth Group Inc (NYSE:UNH)

Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 112

Jim Cramer in a recent program on CNBC recommended UnitedHealth Group Inc (NYSE:UNH) among the names to own to protect from tariff-related uncertainties.

“Health insurers—these hated companies are perfect for this new market. Again, do not mess with what’s going to work. Just go buy the best, and that is United Health. It has great systems and tremendous tech. I also like Signa but not as much as UNH. Got my permission to dislike these companies as much as you want as long as you own them.”

UNH shares plunged after the company reported results that missed Wall Street estimates and decreased its guidance at the midpoint amid higher care activity. However, the bulls believe it’s a buying opportunity. The long-term drivers for the stock and balance sheet of the company remain strong. Due to the recent pullback, the stock’s forward P/E ratio is now the sector average of roughly 16. Another key measure is the FWD P/CF, which is nearly 25% lower than the sector average.

Parnassus Growth Equity Fund stated the following regarding UnitedHealth Group Incorporated (NYSE:UNH) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:

“We sold two Health Care positions during the quarter, pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca and insurerUnitedHealth Group Incorporated (NYSE:UNH). UnitedHealth’s business model is becoming higher-risk, which coupled with slowing Medicare Advantage growth and regulatory uncertainty led to us exiting the position.

After the UnitedHealth stock price recovered to its historical multiple in early November, we felt it was an opportune time to sell based on our concerns about slowing Medicare Advantage growth and the company’s growing business complexity and risk.”

Overall, UNH ranks 3rd on our list of stocks to watch as trade wars begin. While we acknowledge the potential of UNH as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that under the radar AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter time frame. There is an AI stock that went up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks lost around 25%. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than UNH but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.

READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires.

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.