We recently published a list of Jim Cramer’s Lightning Round: 8 Stocks in Focus. In this article, we are going to take a look at where UnitedHealth Group Incorporated (NYSE:UNH) stands against other stocks that Jim Cramer discusses.
Jim Cramer, host of Mad Money, discussed on Monday how investor sentiment surrounding tech stocks has shifted over the past three months. He pointed out that not long ago, tech was seen as the leader of the market. However, that is no longer the case. Cramer noted that he had hoped for a thriving AI infrastructure space.
“Three months ago, I thought we could be in for all sorts of exciting new technology. We went out to that GTC conference with Jensen Huang, but so far this year AI has only evolved in the direction of lower stock prices.”
READ ALSO: Jim Cramer Looked At These 23 Stocks Recently and Jim Cramer Put These 16 Stocks Under a Microscope.
Despite the tech stocks getting hit, Cramer expressed that he has not abandoned his belief in the potential of AI infrastructure. He encouraged investors to focus on the strongest companies within the AI space, especially since prices have dropped significantly. He noted that it makes it less of a chase and more of an opportunity. Cramer also noted that while he had initially expected that enterprise software companies utilizing AI would perform well in 2025, it has not played out as he expected.
“I figured we’d see a group of enterprise software companies that harnessed AI tools to make big money this year. No, that didn’t happen at all. I’m not giving up hope but look at the enterprise software companies who seem to be leading the way in AI. They’ve become some of the worst performers in all of tech.”
Cramer also touched on the global trade situation and specifically addressed the impact of President Trump’s trade policies. He recalled that back in January, he was more focused on the tech-specific trade restrictions imposed by former President Biden, such as bans on advanced chip sales to China.
However, he noted that the situation has escalated into what looks like a full-scale trade war. Cramer said that while it appears that the U.S. might be emerging victorious in some ways, the cost could be high and he called it a “Pyrrhic victory”. He remarked that the current administration under President Trump does not appear in any hurry to reverse the trade limitations. He added:
“Given the new president’s attitude toward our trading partners, I bet he’ll double down before rolling this stuff back. He is more likely to ban the selling of any chips, even potato chips at this point.”
Our Methodology
For this article, we compiled a list of 8 stocks that were discussed by Jim Cramer during the episode of Mad Money aired on March 31. We listed the stocks in ascending order of their hedge fund sentiment as of the fourth quarter of 2024, which was taken from Insider Monkey’s database of over 1,000 hedge funds.
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 Incorporated (NYSE:UNH)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 150
UnitedHealth Group Incorporated (NYSE:UNH) was mentioned during the episode, and here’s what Cramer had to say:
“I think you have to wait for it to come, that, it is one of those red hot stocks. Jeff Marks and I were talking today about whether to chase these red-hot stocks that do well at a time when things are slowing down. United Health’s up, certainly one of them. I’ve gotta tell you, AbbVie’s another, J&J’s another. I want you to wait because, what’s happened every time it’s spiked is it then goes down. I want you to wait but I think it is the best of breed and that does matter.”
UnitedHealth Group (NYSE:UNH) is a healthcare company that offers a wide range of services, including health benefit plans, care delivery, pharmacy services, and health management solutions. It also provides software, consulting, and information products to various organizations in the healthcare sector. Toward the end of February, Cramer extensively commented on the company as he said:
“Well look, I’ll go over the math of what it does to UnitedHealth. This is gonna be one of those long battles, government may win, may not, stock’s down as if, all the stocks are down as if this is the government really cracking down on them. I hate to say it because I think that there are a lot of people that feel that they, uh, that Medicare billing practices, if you read the article, are wrong. Carl, these companies, they’re survivors. And, uh, you buy this uh, yeah you buy it because UnitedHealth is very powerful. I’ve often felt that UnitedHealth is every bit as powerful as the government. Because they are, strong, sprawling, and ready to fight. And the government has historically not been able to take on this group. They haven’t really taken on the middle-man either. Look I mean we have strong corporations in our country and you know UnitedHealth is not going to have to, in the end, I am telling you that I do not think this is going to be significant to their earnings. That’s what I’m saying.
… Yeah look, I mean again, I come back, why do we have higher payments for Medicare Advantage. I mean this stuff is so opaque. Uh, they, these companies have had a lot of scrutiny against them. You’re gonna need legislation. I don’t think you’re going to be able to do anything with the Justice Department. Civil fraud division by the way. You have the legislation. Then there’s an issue. But when you have these lawsuits it tends not to bring about any sort of practice. Look, I’m not being cynical. I know that there are people that just say how can you not, how can you not think that this is gonna break up everything? Well, I mean, think about the history of the government. Winning against these big companies, they don’t. And I am saying that, down twelve percent, you buy UnitedHealth. We’ll have portfolio managers come on within the next six days, and there’ll be a huge number of people who bought em. Cause well, it’s been these, it’s been these long lawsuits. So I’m just saying, get ahead of it right now.”
Overall, UNH ranks 2nd on our list of stocks that Jim Cramer discusses. While we acknowledge the potential of UNH as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that 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 the cheapest AI stock.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.