Top 20 in US stock trading volume: UnitedHealth Plummets as US Intensifies Health Insurance Audits

On Thursday, Tesla topped the list of US stocks by trading volume. It closed 1.89% higher at 341.04, with a trading volume of $32.842 billion.

 

A source with direct knowledge of the meeting revealed that Tesla's CEO Elon Musk met with Republicans on the US House Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday morning local time to discuss energy issues and artificial intelligence.

 

Brett Guthrie, Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said after the meeting that Musk's conversation with lawmakers focused on the energy needs for the further development of artificial intelligence in the US. "This is a national security issue that we must address — and we must find a bipartisan way to do it."

 

In addition, Dan Ives, Managing Director of Wedbush Securities and a Tesla bull, pointed out in an interview this week that after Musk demonstrated his commitment to the company, the electric vehicle giant may be entering a "golden age". In particular, thanks to developments in autonomous driving and robotics, Tesla's market value is expected to reach $2 trillion.

 

NVIDIA ranked second, closing 0.78% higher with a trading volume of $24.711 billion. Recently, NVIDIA launched the AI Blueprint for Video Search and Summarization (VSS). Driven by the NVIDIA Metropolis platform, this tool has been fully rolled out. The AI Blueprint combines a Vision-Language Model (VLM) and a super-intelligent Large Language Model (LLM), enabling enterprises to analyze and summarize large amounts of video content in real-time.

 

Alphabet's Class A shares (Google) ranked third, closing 1.37% higher with a trading volume of $12.921 billion. According to informed sources, the US Department of Justice is investigating Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet, to examine whether its agreement on the use of artificial intelligence technology with a popular chatbot company violates antitrust laws.

 

The sources, who requested anonymity due to the discussion of undisclosed information, said that antitrust enforcers recently notified Google that they are investigating whether the company arranged its agreement with Character.AI in a specific way to evade formal government merger reviews. Under an agreement reached with Google last year, the founders of the chatbot company joined Google, and Google also obtained a non-exclusive license to use the company's technology.

 

Palantir ranked fifth, closing 1.42% higher with a trading volume of $9.273 billion. According to an artificial intelligence (AI) prediction model built using OpenAI's ChatGPT, based on recent performance trends and investors' growing confidence in its AI development roadmap, Palantir's stock price is expected to reach the range of $140-$155 by June 1, with a median estimate of about $147.

 

The software company has cumulatively increased by about 103% in the past six months, and its increase since the beginning of this year has exceeded 60%.

 

However, the AI prediction model points out that risks for Palantir still exist. The stock's current forward price-to-earnings ratio is about 232 times, raising valuation concerns.

 

The model's prediction emphasizes that market optimism depends on whether the company can meet second-quarter expectations. It points out that if earnings or guidance fall short of expectations, it may put short-term pressure on the stock price, but currently market sentiment remains optimistic.

 

UnitedHealth ranked seventh, closing 2.08% lower at 296.67, with a trading volume of $8.056 billion. After the Trump administration announced a significant expansion of audits to pursue improper claims, investors in UnitedHealth and other Medicare Advantage (MA) program providers faced another severe test.

 

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced on Wednesday night the immediate launch of a "major expansion" of audits, adding nearly 2,000 auditors. All eligible MA contracts from the 2018-2024 payment years will be audited.

 

CMS Administrator Mehmet-Oz said, "We are determined to combat fraud, waste, and abuse in all federal healthcare programs. The government recognizes the value of the MA program, but now is the time for CMS to fulfill its audit responsibilities and ensure that the costs of insuring Medicare patients reported by these programs to the government are accurate."

 

This is yet another blow to UnitedHealth investors — previously, the company has faced a government criminal investigation, withdrew its full-year financial guidance due to the deterioration of its MA business, and the pressure of bipartisan-driven drug price cuts.

 

CoreWeave ranked 11th, closing 6.73% lower, partially giving back the 19% surge from the previous day, with a trading volume of $6.592 billion. In the early morning of Thursday, the stock once rose to $116.54, hitting a record high. So far in May, the stock has increased by more than 140%.

 

Snowflake ranked 13th, closing 13.43% higher with a trading volume of $5.192 billion. Snowflake's product revenue in the first fiscal quarter increased by 26% year-over-year to $996.8 million, compared with an average analyst expectation of $966 million; adjusted earnings per share were $0.24, better than the expected $0.21. Remaining performance obligations (another key indicator of growth) were $6.7 billion, higher than the expected approximately $6.57 billion. The company also raised its full-year product revenue guidance from $4.28 billion to approximately $4.33 billion.

 

Quantum computing concept stock IONQ ranked 14th, closing 36.52% higher with a trading volume of $4.503 billion. Quantum computing concept stocks generally rose in US trading on Thursday.

 

In terms of news, previously, quantum computing company D-Wave demonstrated its sixth-generation commercial-grade Advantage2 quantum computing system, which is now available through its Leap real-time quantum cloud service. The system is designed for real-world applications such as optimization, material simulation, and artificial intelligence.

 

"This is not only an important milestone for D-Wave, but also for the entire quantum computing industry, as we bring the sixth-generation quantum computer to market," said Alan Baratz, CEO of D-Wave.

 

D-Wave Quantum ranked 15th, closing 23.96% higher with a trading volume of $4.347 billion.

 

NextEra Energy ranked 20th, closing 6.43% lower at 66.94, with a trading volume of $2.657 billion.