UnitedHealth Group Inc. (UNH), Alcoa Inc (AA) – The Federal Reserve and Volatility: More Bark Than Bite

Now, this isn’t to say that there weren’t individual exceptions last month. UnitedHealth Group Inc. (NYSE:UNH), for instance, was up by approximately 5% over the course of June. This has been a particularly hot sector of late given the ongoing developments in health care. As my colleague Dan Caplinger pointed out, last April, the government had to delay a central component of Obamacare. And this past week, it did the same with a second component — to read more about this, check out Dan’s take on it here. Both moves give insurance carriers like UnitedHealth Group Inc. (NYSE:UNH) more time to figure out how to comply with the legislative overhaul.

On the downside, alternatively, shares of Alcoa Inc (NYSE:AA) plummeted by more than 10% over the same time period. The problem in this regard is the same one that gold stocks like SPDR Gold Trust (ETF) (NYSEMKT:GLD) are facing — for an interesting take on why so many investors fell for the gold bubble, click here. That is, commodity prices are falling as investors and traders come to the realization that a long-assumed wave of inflation simply isn’t materializing. Thus, because Alcoa Inc (NYSE:AA)’s fortunes are largely a function of aluminum prices, which have been falling, well, you can do the math.

These performances aside, the overall lesson here is that it sometimes pays to look at the facts behind the media’s hysteria. Was June a trying month for investors? Sure. But, at the end of the day, it really wasn’t all that different from any other June.

The article The Federal Reserve and Volatility: More Bark Than Bite originally appeared on Fool.com is written by John Maxfield.

John Maxfield has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends UnitedHealth Group.

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