The biggest laggard in the Dow Jones Industrial Average has been UnitedHealth, which has contributed to more than half of the decline over the past eight sessions. There's a rotation going on with investors selling out of the cyclical names in the 30-stock Dow that initially popped on Trump's reelection. , which has contributed to more than half of the decline in the price-weighted average over the past eight sessions.
The insurer has plunged 20% this month alone amid a broad sell-off in pharmacy benefit managers after President-elect Donald Trump's vow to 'knock out' drug-industry middlemen. UnitedHealth is also going through a tumultuous period with And then there's a rotation going on with investors selling out of the cyclical names in the Dow that initially popped on Trump's reelection., all stocks that typically gain when the economy is revving up, are each down at least 5% in December, dragging down the Dow significantly. These names all had a big November as they were seen as beneficiaries of Trump's deregulatory and pro-economy policies. The Dow, largely comprised of blue-chip consumer discretionary and industrial names, is widely viewed as a proxy for overall economic conditions. The extended sell-off did coincide with renewed concerns about a weaker economy in light of a small jump in jobless claims data last week. However, investors still remain quite optimistic about the economy for 2025 and see nothing on the horizon like the stagflationary period of the late 1970s.There are many reasons to believe the Dow's historic losing streak is not a source for major concern and just a quirk of the price-weighted metric that's more than a century old.Feeling out of the loop? We'll catch you up on the Chicago news you need to know. Sign up for the weekly Meanwhile, while the length of Dow's sell-off is alarming, the magnitude is not the case. As of Tuesday midday, the average is only down about 1,582 points, or 3.5% from the closing level on De