The soft inflation data lifted the main rates of US shares. UU. On Tuesday, except for a notable exception: the Dow Jones industrial average, the blue chip index that for many is synonymous with “the stock market”.
The Dow dropped approximately 0.5% at noon of the negotiation, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq composite advanced 0.7% and 1.5%, respectively.
The medical care giant Unitedhealth Group (UNH) was the culprit behind the slow day of the Dow. The actions collapsed more than 15% after the company said its CEO would resign for personal reasons and suspended its orientation all year, citing unexpectedly high health costs.
The reason for the divergence in the performance of the main indices is found in the peculiar construction of the Dow. The index, composed of 30 of the largest companies in the United States, is weighted in the price, which means that the share with the highest price of the shares has the greatest impact on the level of the index throughout the day. On the other hand, the S&P 500 is an index weighted by capitalization in which companies with the highest market limits have the greatest influence.
The two indices contain the same stocks, condemned, there are additional 470 in the S&P 500, but those actions have very different weights within the indices. Apple (AAPL), with its market capitalization of $ 3.1 billion, is the second most valuable company in the world, and therefore the second largest action in the S&P 500. But the price of its action of approximately $ 210 classified it 16 in the Dow from the closing of Monday. That gives less influence within the index than companies a fraction of their size, such as traveler companies (TRV), with their action price of $ 268 and a market capitalization of $ 60 billion.
UnitedHealth entered Tuesday with the third highest price of any company’s shares in the Dow, behind Just Goldman Sachs (GS) and Microsoft (MSFT). Therefore, the depression of UnitedHealth reduced about 370 points of the Dow in recent trade, which represents all its loss of 190 points.
Today was the second time in the last month that a strong fall in Unitedhealth actions released the Dow. The action fell 22% on April 17, its worst day since 1998, after the company reported weak results of the first trimester and reduced its prognosis of profits throughout the year.
