Elevance Health, Inc. (ELV): A Feminist Stock that Benefits from Health Care Growth

We recently compiled a list of the 11 Best Feminist Stocks To Invest In. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Elevance Health, Inc. (NYSE:ELV) stands against the other feminist stocks.

With the passage of time, the role of women in the modern day workplace has slowly started to grow. In less than a century, more women not only lead companies but are also among some of the wealthiest individuals in the world. At the same time, women have demonstrated that they are equal to men when it comes to disrupting industries. One of the best examples of this phenomena is America’s best known rocket company SpaceX. While SpaceX is famous for its founder and billionaire Elon Musk, the firm’s chief operations officer and president Gwynne Shotwell has been equally responsible for its massive success in the rocket industry which has dislodged decades of monopolies held by a few defense contractors.

In fact, this rising trend of women leading the charge at some of the biggest companies in the world has also generated interesting statistics when it comes to compensation. Data from Equilar shows that in 2023, out of the 341 CEOs part of the study, 25 were women. Their median pay package stood at $17.6 million, which according to Equilar, was 7.7% higher than the figure for the complete data set. At the same time, the 25 female CEOs saw five new executives added to the list when compared to 2022.

Considering this, it would appear that the gender pay gap in the US appears to be narrowing. To confirm this, we’ll have to look at the pay statistics for the entire country as opposed to only S&P 500 CEOs. Well, on this front, data gathered by Pew shows that there’s a lot to be done. The research firm points out that in 2002, women earned 80% of what men were paid. Two decades later, i.e. in 2022, this stood at 82%, indicating that there’s a lot more to be done to decrease the wage gap between the two genders. However, at the same time, younger women might be changing these trends. This is because according to Pew, women aged between 25 and 34 earned 92% of their male counterparts, which is quite higher than the figure of 86% in 2002.

With these details in mind, we decided to take a look at the best feminist stocks to invest in.

Our Methodology

To make our list of the best feminist stocks to invest in, we ranked publicly traded Fortune 500 companies with female CEOs by the number of hedge funds that had bought the shares in Q1 2024. Why do we care about what hedge funds do? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (see more details here).

A medical professional working at a computer, utilizing the company's digital solutions to improve care quality for consumers.

Elevance Health, Inc. (NYSE:ELV)

Number of Hedge Fund Shareholders In Q1 2024: 79

CEO: Gail Koziara Boudreaux

Elevance Health, Inc. (NYSE:ELV) is a health benefits company headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. The average of 18 one year analyst share price targets for the firm is $609.25 while the shares are rated Strong Buy on average. Mizuho was impressed by Elevance Health, Inc. (NYSE:ELV)’s future EPS projections in April 2024 when it raised the firm’s share price target to $585 from $575 and kept a Buy rating on the shares. The firm shared that it now believes that Elevance Health, Inc. (NYSE:ELV)’s adjusted EPS in 2024 and 2025 will be $37.30 and $41.60, respectively, which marks a $0.10 growth over earlier estimates. One factor that affected Mizuho’s optimism was Elevance Health, Inc. (NYSE:ELV)’s partnership with a private equity firm in April which saw it expand its primary care options by considering a patient’s holistic profile.

Elevance Health, Inc. (NYSE:ELV)’s forward price to earnings ratio is 14.47, but it’s been around these levels most of the time over the last decade, yet the health insurance company managed to outgrow the market and outperform the S&P 500 Index. Artisan Partners mentioned Elevance Health, Inc. (NYSE:ELV) in its Q4 2023 investor letter where it shared that the firm “benefits from continued growth in health care expenditures as our society ages.”

Overall PH ranks 4th on our list of the best feminist stocks to buy. You can visit 11 Best Feminist Stocks To Invest In to see the other feminist stocks that are on hedge funds' radar. While we acknowledge the potential of ELV as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than ELV but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.

 

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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.