UnitedHealth Group is one of the largest private health insurers, providing medical benefits to about 50 million members globally, including 1 million outside the US as June 2024. As a leader in employer-sponsored, self-directed, and government-backed insurance plans, UnitedHealth has obtained massive scale in managed care. Along with its insurance assets, UnitedHealth's continued investments in its Optum franchises have created a healthcare services colossus that spans everything from medical and pharmaceutical benefits to providing outpatient care and analytics to both affiliated and third-party customers.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a pervasive technology in the Healthcare sector. Companies have been adopting AI in medical imaging, drug discovery, documentation, and administration. In medical imaging and diagnostics, AI is advancing rapidly in the detection of tumors, infections, and fractures. In drug discovery, vast data sets are being used to identify potential drugs to treat disease and predict their efficacy. AI also can improve trial design and create treatments for a wider range of people, including those with rare diseases. The technology also has helped to create more-efficient methods for documenting medical information with Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR). ASR enables voice-to-text technology and increases the productivity of medical staff by nearly 10%. For administrative tasks, AI has streamlined billing, scheduling, and fraud detection (a major issue that raises medical expenses for consumers). Here is a list of Argus BUY-rated Healthcare stocks that are leaders in the use of AI.

Dividend income is often overlooked amid gyrations in the stock market. But dividends are an important element of return. Dividend income accounted for 42% of the total return of the S&P 500 between 1930 and 2012, according to Hartford Funds. And that's just the average. In some of those decades, dividends accounted for more than 50% of total returns and even 100% of returns. More recently, dividends have accounted for a smaller portion of returns, at around 15%-20%. Not for nothing, in 2022, dividend payments softened the blow when most market indices turned bearish as the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates. Not all dividends are created equal, though, and it is important to understand the difference between the two main categories: high-yield stocks and dividend-growth stocks. High-yield stocks typically have dividends that pay out in the 5%-8% range. Though the income appears attractive, the share prices of high-yield stocks could signal some risks. Dividend-growth stocks typically have lower yields, often in the 1.0%-2.5% range. But the lower-yielding dividends are not likely to be a huge component of cash flow, leaving management teams with other value-additive options for deploying cash -- such as share buybacks, M&A, the repayment of debt, or reinvestment in the core business. Below is a partial list of Argus BUY-rated stocks that are included in our June Dividend Growth Theme Model Portfolio.

The Vickers Top Buyers & Sellers is a daily report that identifies the five companies the largest insider purchase transactions based on the dollar value of the transactions as well as the five companies the largest insider sales transactions based on the dollar value of the transactions.