Dallas, Texas 11/01/2013 (Financialstrend) – The S&P 500 index tracked WellPoint Inc. (NYSE:WLP) with a market cap of $25.4 billion. On October 23, it announced results for its third quarter operations. It was able to report earnings per share of $2.1 per share and revenue came in at $17.7 billion. The company has also provided positive guidance for its 4Q operations. This is in spite of the niggling teething troubles that the federal government funded health care exchange portal is facing over the past few days since its launch.
This has led many proponents of the “Affordable Care Act” to hurrah that the act is proving beneficial to end users and health insurers at the expense of deep pocketed health care providers. Investors who kept a sharp eye on the market and operational performance of insurers and health care providers have reported that market value of few of the top insurance providers have posted growth in excess of the S&P 500 index over the past couple of weeks. These major players include Well Point and its close rival and peer United Health have posted 32% gains in comparison to 24% upwards movement by S&P 500 in the comparison period.
These broad trends have started to induce analysts and market players to predict that the revenue and income of health insurers is bound to gain as the deep rooted changes being brought about by Obhamacare in the medical industry beings to take effect. The most immediate effect would be seen in the new number of insurers who will come under the insurance net due to the punitive fines which are being threatened for individuals who do not posses insurance. Due to these positive changes, Deutsche Bank has reiterated its previous rating of Hold on WellPoint. The stock has a price target of $95.18 by analysts and is trading at $84.80 on October 31.