Shares of UnitedHealth Group Inc. UNH, +2.02% surged 2.8% in afternoon trading Monday, enough to pace the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s DJIA, -0.20% gainers, and to put them on track for a two-month high.
UnitedHealth’s stock has now run up 12.8% over the past five days. The health care services provider’s stock price gain of $14.07 would add about 93 points to the Dow’s price, while the Dow was up just 2 points, or less than 0.1%, but with 17 of 30 components losing ground. Providing the next biggest boost to the price-weighted index was Chevron Corp.’s stock CVX, +1.93%, which rose $3.39, or 2.3%, to add about 22 points to the Dow’s price. Meanwhile, the biggest drags were shares of Salesforce Inc. CRM, -2.48% and Boeing Co. BA, -1.99%, which combined shaved about 46 points off the Dow.