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There was a time my mum was in the hospital, and I remember how quickly health and money became two worries at once. You’re already concerned about someone you love getting better, and the last thing you want is to start thinking about hospital bills. 

That experience made me appreciate just how much financial peace of mind matters when someone needs medical care.

Millions of people live with those concerns. UnitedHealthcare served 48.3 million members in the third quarter. UnitedHealth Group (UNH) brought in $112.7 billion in revenue, slightly below $113.2 billion a year ago. Optum Health’s operating earnings rose to $735 million even as it exited some value-based care markets.

CEO Stephen Hemsley said the results reflect a push toward “a simpler, more supportive experience for patients” and clinicians. UnitedHealth now expects full-year earnings of at least $19.50 per share on a GAAP basis and $20.50 on an adjusted basis.

However, that progress has come at a cost, with the company reducing benefits and exiting certain markets.

Also Read: UnitedHealth CFO delivers blunt verdict on the company’s big reset

UnitedHealth’s margins recover, but costs stay high

In a note shared with TheStreet, Morgan Stanley said it hosted an investor lunch with CFO Wayne DeVeydt, UnitedHealthcare President Bobby Hunter and Medicare & Retirement CEO Betsy Chin.

It kept an Overweight rating and raised its price target to $531 from $529. Morgan Stanley said management’s recovery and visibility into 2027 and 2028 earnings raised its conviction.

Shares have returned 25.87% this year and 13.71% over one year through Oct. 28, according to Yahoo Finance. Morgan Stanley says UnitedHealth trades at 14.8x 2028 earnings, about 0.3 turns below its historical average.

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Medicare Advantage, the private plans for older Americans, is the clearest recovery. After years of pricing and product adjustments, margins are at the upper end of the company’s 2%-4% target. 

September’s federal landscape file showed benefit cuts and market exits, yet management believes enrollment can grow in 2027. Its HMO and special-needs plans have done well so far in open enrollment, which runs Oct. 15 to Dec. 7.

Where UnitedHealth’s costs still hurt

Employer-sponsored plans are harder. Specialty drugs, hospital care, and out-of-network billing disputes keep margins suppressed. Management is resetting plan design and pricing to return to 7%-9% margins. It may stay near the low end to protect enrollment, with 2027 a foundation year and growth likely in 2028.

People may feel Medicaid most. UnitedHealth expects a “steady stream” of membership attrition through 2027 as states trim rolls ahead of new work requirements and other provisions of the federal budget law known as OBBBA. It still calls Medicaid core and expects growth to restart in 2028.

Related: How many employees does UnitedHealth have? Its workforce, locations & layoffs explained

Thinking back to when my mum was hospitalized, I know how much having reliable financial support matters during a medical emergency. Few things are more worrying than losing health coverage when you need it most. For families already struggling with medical bills, even a small change in benefits can make a big difference.

AI is the biggest swing factor in 2027, management says, and it could be a “grand slam” if executed well. UnitedHealth plans to spend about $4 billion on capital investments in 2027, primarily on AI, following roughly $1.5 billion in AI spending in 2026. Management expects it to take about 12 months for those investments to break even.

In one example, AI cut the cost of its Sarbanes-Oxley internal controls from about $8 million a year to $15,000 a month. Administrative spending should fall in dollar terms in 2026 and 2027, and the CFO said 2027 would look much better if savings were converted to profit rather than reinvested.

UnitedHealthcare served 48.3 million members in the third quarter, bringing in $112.7 billion in revenue, slightly below $113.2 billion a year ago.Bill Clark / Getty Images

Morgan Stanley sees upside if the turnaround holds

Policy is the wild card. With midterms making investors anxious, management wants stability in funding across Star Ratings, which grade plan quality, and risk adjustment. It has engaged more than ever with the administration and CMS, whose leaders echoed that optimism at a Morgan Stanley conference. 

Morgan Stanley does not expect UnitedHealth to sue over its 2028 Star Ratings, as Centene, Alignment Healthcare and Clover have.

With debt back to about 40% of capital, management has a “green light” to restart acquisitions in 2027 and beyond, targeting value-based care and fintech-adjacent assets. Morgan Stanley’s illustrative bridges show 2027 earnings up to 15% above its estimates and 14% above consensus at the high end, and 2028 up to 13% and 15%, before any extra AI savings.

Its base case is $531. The bull case is $648 on faster margin recovery, and the bear case is $354 if medical use rises and the recovery slips.

For investors, the verdict is that the turnaround is further along than the share price suggests, but it depends on commercial costs, Medicaid attrition, and regulators. For members, the same fix shows in plans, benefits, and coverage.

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Millions of Americans have indirect exposure to Elon Musk’s business empire through index funds in their 401(k) accounts, even if they have never purchased shares of his companies directly.

A potential merger could change that exposure before the end of the year.

Senior Equity Research Analyst at Barclays, Dan Levy, told clients that Tesla and SpaceX could merge before December 2026, potentially creating one of the largest publicly traded companies by valuation, The Wealth Advisor reported.

The prospect raises questions about how such a deal could affect passive index funds and the retirement savings tied to them.

Tesla is already part of the S&P 500, according to the S&P Dow Jones Indices’ SPY/SPX fact sheet, meaning its stock influences many broad-market and target-date funds held in workplace retirement plans. 

If a merger takes SpaceX public, index providers could adjust their holdings, potentially changing millions of Americans’ portfolio exposure without requiring them to take any action.

Also read: SpaceX is now in your 401(k), and Musk is the risk

Barclays maps a Tesla-SpaceX share-swap ratio before the December vote

Barclays laid out the share-swap arithmetic for a potential Tesla-SpaceX merger, The Wealth Advisor reported. Based on the analysis, Tesla shareholders could receive about 0.7 SpaceX shares for each Tesla share in an all-stock deal before any acquisition premium.

Barclays indicated the two companies combined would have a market value of roughly $3.6 trillion, with Tesla’s December 6, 2026, meeting as the possible approval window.

Each Tesla share would convert into a stake in the combined entity’s aerospace, artificial intelligence, and automotive revenue streams, which Barclays framed as a vertical-integration thesis.

Barclay’s ownership breakdown helps explain why SpaceX would likely be the acquiring entity in any proposed deal. Musk owns roughly 20% of Tesla and about 48% of SpaceX, but supervoting shares give him approximately 82% of SpaceX’s voting power.

Why passive index funds already own more Tesla than most savers realize

Tesla joined the S&P 500 in late 2020 and now accounts for about 2% of the benchmark powering millions of American 401(k) accounts, Quartz reported. 

That weighting means the stock’s daily moves ripple directly through target-date funds, total-market funds, and large-cap index funds that dominate workplace retirement menus.

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A Tesla-SpaceX merger would collapse two of the most-watched Musk-linked tickers into a single corporate structure, forcing mechanical adjustments across index funds.

S&P Dow Jones Indices would then determine how the new combined entity sits inside the benchmark, potentially expanding the Musk-related footprint across passive portfolios.

Pension managers across California and New York already flagged this concern before SpaceX even began trading on public markets this year.

The managers wrote to Musk, expressing concern that SpaceX could become an unavoidable holding in their public portfolios going forward, Quartz reported.

Passive index funds already expose retirement savers to Tesla, and a potential SpaceX merger could reshape their portfolios without their input.Nitat Termmee / Getty Images

Portfolio concentration risk now sits inside most retirement accounts

The merger math has direct implications for the broad-based benchmarks that currently dominate workplace retirement menus and brokerage portfolios across the country.

Advisors have begun flagging the combination as a dilution event with knock-on effects for anyone holding a market-weight index fund inside a retirement account.

Clint Sorenson, Co-Founder of Ascentis Asset Management, told InvestmentNews an all-equity merger would deepen dilution for portfolios heavy on tech names.

<strong>If it’s an all-equity deal, the whole game becomes dilution and position size. Most advisor portfolios are already overweight a handful of mega-cap tech names through their benchmarks, and a merger like this only compounds that,</strong>

Sorenson flagged a key-man risk inherent in portfolios holding Musk-linked positions, framing single-executive exposure as a concentration issue beyond standard sector weighting.

Barclays reinforced the structural concern by noting Musk would hold roughly 37% of the combined entity’s equity and 56% of its voting power.

Tesla and SpaceX each filed Form 8-K disclosures with the SEC on October 21, 2026, confirming their boards had formed special committees to evaluate a potential combination.

On SpaceX’s Q3 2026 earnings call, Musk told Tesla investors a merger would be “a good idea,” The Motley Fool reported

Jacob Tally, an advisor at Seattle-based Prospero Wealth, said Musk’s pattern of business consolidations leaves retirement investors more exposed to one executive’s decisions. The February 2026 xAI absorption by SpaceX pulled another large private valuation into the Musk footprint already tracked by index funds, as InvestmentNews noted.

What to check inside your 401(k) before any Musk deal closes

Each fund’s fact sheet, available through the plan portal, lists its ten largest holdings and the share of assets in each position, with the underlying data drawn from Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings on Form N-PORT that become public 60 days after each fiscal quarter ends.

Holding an S&P 500 fund alongside a Nasdaq-100, large-cap growth, or technology fund can mean investing in the same major companies multiple times, a layering effect Sorenson flagged as an underappreciated source of concentration risk in an InvestmentNews analysis.

Some 401(k) plans also offer a self-directed brokerage account, allowing participants to buy individual stocks beyond the plan’s standard fund options.

The plan’s summary plan description explains whether this feature is available, and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) requires plans to provide this document to participants.

A potential Tesla-SpaceX merger could change how some retirement portfolios gain exposure to Musk’s businesses, but the extent of that change will depend on the final transaction terms and how index providers respond.

Until S&P Dow Jones Indices and fund managers establish the combined entity’s benchmark treatment, reviewing existing holdings through each fund’s fact sheet remains a practical first step.

Related: Bank of America backs SpaceX stock that may be in your 401(k)

Jim Cramer isn’t worried that artificial intelligence (AI) is a fad.

He’s worried that the companies building it are about to ask Wall Street for more money than it can comfortably hand over. The “Mad Money” host now sees a wave of giant stock sales as a real threat to the bull market.

The timing makes his warning hard to brush off. On October 26, Anthropic filed to go public, and Meta laid out plans for a massive share sale on the same day. For anyone with a 401(k), the fallout could matter even if they never buy a single new share.

Cramer warns that the market may be running out of money

Cramer laid out his concern on his October 26 show.

“I think both the debt market and the equity market are running out of money,” he said, before adding, “I just don’t like what I’m seeing right now.” He also made clear he wasn’t predicting a crash, saying, “I’m not calling the top.”

Also read: What Jim Cramer is watching as Anthropic heads to Nasdaq

His argument is about supply, not the quality of the companies. Cramer has said that today’s AI leaders are real businesses and many are making big money, unlike the shaky startups of the dot-com era. The danger, in his view, is the sheer size of the fundraising, which could pull cash away from other stocks even when their earnings look solid.

This isn’t a new theme for him. Back in August, Cramer told viewers that the stock market works like any other market.

“Too much supply and prices are going to be lower,” he said, warning that when new deals draw less interest, “the whole market, not just the IPOs, tends to get slammed.” 

He sounded a similar alarm in July, as SpaceX, Alphabet and others rushed to raise money. “The bull will suffocate under the weight of all that new paper,” he warned at the time, as reported by TheStreet.

Even then, he said a pause in new offerings could still keep the rally alive.

A record year for selling stock

The numbers behind Cramer’s worry are big. Anthropic’s IPO could raise up to $100 billion, and the company plans to trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker “ANT.” Its filing has not yet set the number of shares or the price.

Meta wants a similar sum. The company plans to raise $95 billion by selling shares, with $35 billion coming from underwritten offerings and $60 billion through an at-the-market program, to help pay for its AI build-out, according to Meta. Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom have signaled interest in buying some of those shares.

All of this comes on top of a year that has already broken records. U.S. IPOs have raised more than $148 billion so far in 2026, topping the roughly $142 billion raised in all of 2021. That comparison stands out because 2021 was the year right before the last bear market.

Cramer has pointed to that same figure as he watches Anthropic head to market.

He has questioned whether investors have enough capital to absorb the wave of AI listings, framing it as a supply problem rather than a sign the boom is over, according to TheStreet. He sees a bad quarter, a rate hike or a run on margin as more likely triggers than an outright top.

Jim Cramer isn’t worried that artificial intelligence is a fad. He’s worried that the companies building it are about to ask Wall Street for more money than it can comfortably hand over.Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images

Why your 401(k) could feel the squeeze

Most Americans aren’t choosing whether to buy into the next big IPO through their retirement plans. But many own mutual funds or exchange-traded funds packed with large public companies. If investors sell those stocks to free up cash for new offerings, or start doubting that pricey AI bets will pay off, those funds could take a hit.

The mechanics are simple enough. Big new offerings are often funded by selling shares investors already own, and a crowded deal calendar can force fund managers to trim winners that have nothing to do with the new listings. That’s how a rush for capital can spill into the broader market.

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A quick example shows the stakes. Say you have $300,000 in a 401(k), with 70% in stock funds. If those holdings fell 10% and the rest stayed flat, the account would lose $21,000, or 7% of its value. Your real results would depend on what you own.

There’s also the question of what these companies are bringing to market. Anthropic last raised money in May at a $965 billion valuation, and some investors have since floated figures as high as $2 trillion, according to TheStreet. Deals that size need a lot of buyers, and those buyers have to find the cash somewhere.

What savers can do now

Before making big changes, it’s worth checking what you already own. A broad stock fund may hold hundreds of companies, but large names can make up a bigger slice than many investors realize. You can also look at your mix of stocks and bonds and ask whether it still fits your timeline, since someone retiring soon has less time to recover from a drop.

Spreading money across different investments can help, though it has limits. Diversification can’t guarantee your investments won’t suffer if the market drops, but it can improve the odds that any loss is smaller.

Cramer himself isn’t telling anyone to run for the exits. He has said a pause in new offerings could still save the rally. Until that happens, his message is to stay alert as the biggest deals of the year hit the market.

Related: Jim Cramer doubles down on his stock market stand

Buying a used car can potentially feel like a good deal until the paperwork begins.

You’ve got the advertised price, the trade-in negotiation, financing terms, and sometimes an unexpected fee that changes what you thought you’d be paying. For Americans already struggling with vehicle costs, those surprises can make a stressful purchase even worse.

But Carvana CEO (CVNA) Ernie Garcia believes a major change could be coming to the way Americans buy cars.

During the company’s October 28 earnings call, Garcia described how artificial intelligence could play a role in streamlining a complicated transaction into a simple decision.

His comments also underscore an intriguing possibility for buyers accustomed to negotiating prices and navigating dealership fees. That said, the question remains if that convenience could translate into a more attractive deal.

Carvana CEO Ernie Garcia says AI agents could simplify used-car shopping transactions.Bloomberg / Getty Images

Carvana CEO predicts a major change for used-car shoppers 

Buying a car typically involves several steps, but Carvana CEO Ernie Garcia believes AI could potentially take that experience much further. 

During the company’s October 28 earnings call, Garcia described a future in which AI agents could find suitable vehicles, calculate trade-in values, apply for financing, and present customers with their down payment, monthly bill, and delivery options.

Instead of working through each step separately, buyers may receive a nearly complete proposal and decide whether to accept it. Garcia said the technology could “effectively reduce digital friction to zero while leaving physical friction largely unchanged.”

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In other words, AI might eliminate much of the shopping hassle, even though someone still needs to inspect, prepare, and deliver the vehicle.

And Carvana believes its existing business gives it an advantage.

“If we were starting from scratch today, we would build Carvana,” Garcia told analysts.

The company’s powerful earnings report helps explain his confidence.

Carvana sold a record 217,385 retail vehicles in Q3, up 39% from a year earlier, while revenue jumped 42% to $8.04 billion. Those results become even more impressive considering the fact that the management described the broader used-car market as roughly flat.

Rather than waiting for more Americans to buy cars, Carvana is attracting a larger share of existing shoppers.

Moreover, its net income also climbed to $483 million, while adjusted EBITDA reached a record $800 million.

But Garcia’s comments point to something beyond convenience.

An AI assistant capable of comparing actual purchase costs could also reveal something shoppers have struggled with for years, which is how much a vehicle really costs once dealer fees, add-ons, and financing enter the picture.

Why car prices, dealer fees and financing remain a problem

I’ve bought a car online, and I’d tell you first-hand that the car’s advertised price doesn’t always tell the whole story.

A car might look affordable online, only for documentation fees, mandatory add-ons, or financing terms to change the final amount.

Federal regulators are trying to make those surprises harder to hide.

In September, the Federal Trade Commission issued guidance clarifying that advertised vehicle prices must include mandatory dealer charges, including required documentation fees and add-ons. Government-required charges are generally excluded.

The guidance explains existing legal obligations rather than introducing a blanket ban on dealer fees. Garcia believes greater transparency could help consumers compare competing offers.

“It aids in price discovery and value understanding for our customers, and we think that’s great,” he said.

That’s doubly important when affordability is already stretched.

The average used-car asking price reached $27,235 in September, its highest monthly level since December 2022, according to Cox Automotive data cited by Autotrader.

Meanwhile, Edmunds reported that Americans financing used vehicles in the third quarter borrowed an average of $30,703, paid 10.6% annual interest, and faced monthly payments averaging $582.

Consider what a one-percentage-point rate reduction could mean.

On a hypothetical $30,703 loan lasting 70 months, lowering the APR from 10.6% to 9.6% would save approximately $15 per month, or about $1,080 over the loan’s term.

Garcia said the company has lowered customer interest rates by more than one percentage point over two years. However, executives acknowledged that some increases in benchmark rates are still passed through to borrowers.

For shoppers, the lesson is straightforward: compare the full purchase price, APR, and total loan cost, not just the monthly payment. AI could make those comparisons easier. But even perfect price transparency cannot make expensive cars or high borrowing costs disappear.

What Carvana’s shopping vision means for buyers and the stock

For Carvana investors, Garcia’s comments indicate that the company’s next growth opportunity would come from making online car shopping even easier.

On top of that, the retailer already has momentum.

Despite selling more than 217,000 vehicles last quarter, Garcia said Carvana still holds just over 2% of the used-car market. That leaves considerable room to gain customers without requiring the overall market to expand.

And management expects Q4 retail sales to increase again, assuming economic conditions remain stable.

But there’s a catch. More shoppers discovering Carvana through AI doesn’t automatically mean the company can serve them.

Executives acknowledged that the number of vehicles immediately available on its website isn’t growing nearly as quickly as sales. Expanding inspection, reconditioning and delivery capacity remains essential.

Growth is also expensive.

Although adjusted EBITDA reached a record $800 million, Carvana’s adjusted EBITDA margin slipped to 10% from 11.3% a year earlier. Higher fuel and logistics expenses added pressure, while efforts to offer customers better financing terms also affected profitability.

The company expects full-year adjusted EBITDA toward the upper end of its $2.7 billion to $3 billion guidance range.

For shareholders, the challenge is turning sales into sustainable profits. For buyers, Garcia’s vision promises something different which involves fewer obstacles between finding a car and understanding the deal.

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Verizon is seeing a concerning shift in customer behavior despite recently improving customer retention in its wireless business.

The carrier revealed in its latest earnings report that it added 406,000 new postpaid phone customers in the third quarter of 2026, up more than 820% year over year. Its wireless retail postpaid phone churn (the percentage of customers who canceled their service) also hit 0.94% during the quarter, down from 0.98% in the same period in 2025. 

These improvements follow Verizon CEO Dan Schulman’s pledge earlier this year to remove customer pain points and avoid price increases without corresponding value, in an effort to curb switching behavior.  

The carrier later launched lower-priced wireless plans: Simplicity and Verizon One in June, along with a new loyalty program.

“The customer value proposition we launched in mid-June continues to deliver beyond our expectations,” said Schulman on an Oct. 26 earnings call.

Verizon customers are putting off phone upgrades

Despite seeing success in attracting and retaining customers, Verizon is noticing that many are avoiding device upgrades.

During the third quarter, upgrade volumes among Verizon customers declined more than 20% year over year. The carrier’s equipment revenue during the quarter was down 9% from the prior year, which Verizon said in the earnings report was “primarily from significantly lower upgrade volumes.”

On the earnings call, Verizon Chief Financial Officer Tony Skiadas said that the company’s “continued focus on microsegmentation,” its “disciplined approach to upgrades,” and “customer-first focus” all contributed to lower upgrade volumes during the quarter.

“With the success of Simplicity and our focus on giving more choice to customers, we expect the trend of lower upgrades to continue in the fourth quarter,” said Skiadas. 

Read more: Verizon launches generous customer perks after raising prices

Verizon customers are pulling back on upgrading their devices as smartphone prices increase worldwide. This is due to the global memory chip shortage, which has inflated component costs. 

Global smartphone retail prices have increased by 20% so far this year. Global smartphone shipments also declined 20% year over year in the third quarter of 2026, the lowest third-quarter level since 2012, according to data from Counterpoint earlier this month.

“Q3 was the second successive quarter to take the full brunt of the memory crisis,” said Shilpi Jain, a senior analyst at Counterpoint, in a press release. “The extreme memory shortage is pushing the smartphone market into a more selective phase, reshaping OEM (original equipment manufacturer) strategies and even consumer behavior.” 

“Consumers are holding on to their devices longer than estimated, increasingly considering refurbished devices and prioritizing higher-value devices, while OEMs are adjusting portfolios, pricing, and market strategies to protect profitability,” she continued. 

Amid this trend, a recent Reviews.org survey found that Americans, on average, are opting to upgrade their phones every 32 months in 2026, which is three months longer than last year, mainly because new phones are getting pricier. 

Verizon customers are holding off on upgrading their phones as prices rise. Bloomberg / Getty Images

Verizon recently reduced free phone offers for customers

Verizon is seeing a decline in phone upgrades after scaling back its free-handset deals earlier this year, driven by evolving consumer habits. 

“The era of just the free handset, that’s gone right now,” said Schulman on Verizon’s earnings call in April. “We are looking at what does the customer need. They have a handset that is last year’s model that’s been refurbished. Do they need a new handset? Many of them, because of the economy, are keeping their handsets longer right now.”

On the carrier’s Oct. 26 earnings call, Schulman emphasized that it was the right decision to make for the company. 

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“I said a year ago that we were no longer going to be prey, that we were going to stop losing market share, and that was true this quarter,” said Schulman. 

“We did all of that in what I think was a very fiscally responsible manner,” he continued. “We’re competing the right way to win in the market. We aren’t competing on promotions or free phones or subsidies, which, by the way, to me, gives no one in the market any competitive advantage.”

He said that Verizon has instead sharpened several areas in its business to “gain competitive advantage” in the wireless market.

“The way to gain competitive advantage is to make sure that you look at your overall end-to-end customer experience, your value proposition, the strength of your network, because there you can create sustainable and lasting competitive advantage,” said Schulman. “Clearly, our value proposition is resonating with our customers.”

As Verizon sees success in retention and mobile account additions, Schulman said that customers could potentially see higher wireless prices in the future. 

“I’m not against taking up pricing as long as we add value to that,” he said. “In the past, we took up pricing without adding any value to customers, and eventually that comes back to haunt you.”

“Your churn starts to go up,” he continued. “You lose the trust of your customers. We’ve added a tremendous amount of value in the last year, and there’s potentially room for us to adjust that price-to-value equation by increasing pricing as well.”

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