Lincare & UnitedHealth

Lincare (LNCR) has been one of our worst Buy List stocks this year, but Q1 earnings were pretty good. The company earned 79 cents a share compared with 59 cents last year. Wall Street was expecting just 71 cents. On the downside, Lincare said that it now expects a $100 million impact from Medicare price reductions. Earlier, the company expected an impact of $65 million to $70 million.
The bad news today came from UnitedHealth (UNH). The company had been pretty consistent in saying it would earn $3.95 to $4 a share for this year. Well, not anymore. For the first quarter, UNH earned 78 cents, which was two cents below Street estimates. But the company lowered its full-year guidance to $3.55 to $3.60 per share. Ouch, that’s a major downgraded. The shares are getting rightly punished today.

Posted by on April 22nd, 2008 at 2:55 pm


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