By Caitlin McCabe
UnitedHealth is casting a pall over the Dow industrials.
The healthcare heavyweight's stock slid early Friday after The Wall Street Journal reported the Justice Department was probing its Medicare billing practices and how UnitedHealth records diagnoses.
The pullback weighed on the Dow industrials. UnitedHealth's high stock price means it has a sizable effect on the price-weighted benchmark.
Meanwhile in global markets, enthusiasm about artificial intelligence is bubbling up again-this time in Asia.
Alibaba sparked a fierce rally, a day after the Chinese e-commerce and cloud-computing company reported strong results from its AI strategy and pledged more aggressive investment in this area.
Alibaba stock leapt 15% in Hong Kong, and rallied in early U.S. trading. The Hang Seng Index surged 4% to its highest close in just under three years.
In recent trading:
The Dow fell moderately. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 posted muted moves.
The 10-year Treasury yield edged below 4.5%.
The yen weakened after Bank of Japan Gov. Kazuo Ueda promised to respond to the recent rise in bond yields to multiyear highs.
Oil prices declined. Brent-crude futures slipped below $76 a barrel, on pace to break a four-session rising streak.
Gold futures retreated but held close to recent all-time highs.
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 21, 2025 09:42 ET (14:42 GMT)
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