We Bought United Health Again : $UNH - Malevolent Missy Stock Series #69

Missy is on her way to financial independence. See what she is buying now!

For those of you who followed my old blog starting in 2017 at FreddySmidlap dot com I closed that website and domain in summer of 2023. I was tired of paying for hosting on an unprofitable enterprise but really liked writing the Malevolent Missy Investing Series. So I moved my old posts over here instead of just tossing them aside. Most of the graphics got lost for the old posts and that is a shame but the text remains (I think). Missy and I still think QQQ is the best index for your long term investing dollars and we will continue to learn and grow by buying one stock near the middle of each month. Today marks month number 67 in the series.

Missy’s portfolio closing the gap!

Today we bought United Health stock, UNH 0.00%↑ . We usually try and buy businesses on the rise but today we are adding to our position in this badly beaten down health insurance juggernaut. We will see if they can un-ass themselves and return to their former glory.

Did you ever want to know how to build a successful stock portfolio from scratch? 

Since fall of 2019 Malevolent Missy is doing just that and proving the naysayers wrong.  Those are the same naysayers who say you cannot beat a diversified low cost index fund like VTSAX with individual stocks so you should not even try.  Well, I noticed the term Financial Independence contains the key word "independence" and for me that includes independent thought even apart from the popular personal finance blowhards.

The past three years have seen a comeback for Missy’s (and mine in the Smidlap Portfolio) growth stocks. We all looked like growth investing geniuses until late 2021 when the bloom came off the rose and the market overcorrected the prices of some great companies like Nvidia and Shopify.  Not all of Missy's buys will turn out to be life-changing as far as returns but some good ones got knocked down too far in 2022.  Eventually the smoke will clear and we'll clean up some of the "mistakes" but for now we just keep buying. Whether you prefer index fund investing or individual stocks you should just keep buying too!

This month we bought United Health

First, here is a quote for United Health stock from Yahoo! finance UNH stock quote 

I encourage any and all stock investors to learn their way around these quote pages on the Yahoo! machine. 

Oh, and if you've been following along you will remember real-life Malevolent Missy moved on to greener pastures and a new job that came with a major pay increase in early 2022.  So, just like in real life, she increased the amount of her monthly stock buys from $1,100 to $1,500!  

Here is the summary for the month.  We bought UNH Stock

United Health, UNH: 5.72 shares @ $262.25 = $1500 on 5-15-25

For our scorecard comparisons we also bought our usual equal $1500 amounts of the Nasdaq 100 index (QQQ) and the Vangard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI).

QQQ:   2.89 shares @ $518.68 = $1500

and

VTI (VTSAX, ETF equivalent):  5.18 shares @ $289.50 = $1500

Remember everybody:  none of this is a recommendation to buy any particular securities, stocks, or funds.  I am not a finance professional.  Do your own research and take responsibility for your own money decisions.  It's called independent thought and it is a glorious thing.  This is merely an example of one way to try and build a winning stock portfolio.  

This is Missy’s third time buying UNH shares. The company previously announced they might make less than their previous forecast for the year. Then….the CEO announced he was quitting. Then….reports surfaced of potential investigation for Medicare fraud. All this has led to this company being more than 50% off their recent high above $600/share. This make take some time to resolve but the company is still expected to make north of $25/share in earnings this year. They have a long history of really rewarding investors so we will shoot our shot here and hope we bought a bargain.

Also, I added share this morning in our own Smidlap portfolio so we put some more skin in the game.

If you did not know or you forgot we own every one of The Missy Series Stocks in our own portfolio

The runners up this month buy is Kinsale Capital

Missy and I already own shares of this growing insurance business, but not much considering proportions. This one was neck and neck to the top stop with UNH today.

Check out our exclusive CAGR analysis sheet in Google sheets. It has a wealth of information on some of the greatest compounding companies in the world. I made it myself and it updates in more or less real time. Seriously, if you want to look for great companies, start building a core of those with a proven track record.

Regardless of what we did not do there is always another buying opportunity next month!  There is no missing out. Try not to get too eager to get rich quick and just stick to the plan, man.

Malevolent Missy's Long Term Results and Holdings

Missy is now only lagging VTSAX by about 6%! She keeps closing the gap and should be ahead soon.

Although Missy is still lagging the index funds her portfolio is starting to close the gap and hopefully return to its former glory. Just a quick look back at the green line in the graph around February of 2021 shows how much growth can outperform but when it falls out of favor look out below!

Our youthful heroine Malevolent Missy buys one stock per month as she works towards her own financial independence.  The key for her is to buy stocks and invest consistently as she builds her winning stock portfolio.  She is a real financial lumberjack with the behavior of calm consistency. Here are her results against QQQ and VTSAX. See how the gap is closing?

We are building Missy a successful stock portfolio from the ground up in real time

Each month we'll buy an equal $1500 amount of one stock and the same amount of the two index funds, VTSAX and QQQ.  The first 12 months our gal was investing $1000/month in one stock and the same in VTSAX in her work retirement account. With her recent raise and promotion she decided to raise those amount to $1500.  Any person getting that same raise should consider doing the same as they make more money. Enjoy some of that raise now and invest a little extra too. Don’t be a miser with all of your money, just keep steadily investing and patiently watch the pie grow

We got some individual picks wrong but we were right so far about QQQ!

The Nasdaq 100 index (QQQ) is absolutely clobbering the beloved VTSAX total stock market index so far after more than five years. I think our individual holdings will eventually catch VTSAX in performance but I am not so sure about catching QQQ.

Reminder: We personally own all of Missy’s holdings in our own Smidlap Portfolio

Basically we are buying stocks in real time without any smoke and mirrors or "what if's" like looking backward.  Everybody knows it would have been great to buy Amazon stock back in 2002, but what good does that do when we look forward?  I'll repeat this part: We also own all of the Missy Series stocks in our Smidlap Portfolio.  So our own real money is on the line and it's not just a theoretical stock market game lasting only a short time.  This is lifetime investing and hopefully shows what it's like for a young retail investor going through market ups and downs.

Real Money Results - This Hits Home Better Than Percentages!

Like I said Missy is now lagging the benchmark QQQ and VTSAX fund average returns with her stock picks but her portfolio is closing the gap. The dollar growth is very instructive as the scorecard shows the QQQ’s beating the VTSAX by 57% to 37% but look the difference in dollars gained! The gain of QQQ is $12,000 more thank VTSAX over 5 years.  

She is only 28 years old though and has time to wait for her future stars to bounce back as far as stock prices.  Most of the stocks with beaten down prices are still doing fine as companies and the prices don't always reflect that future growth potential.  When growth falls out of favor look out below and hold on tight! I don’t know if she will ever catch the QQQ’s but beating VTSAX should happen before too long.

Always look at the  total assets- Even with the recent overall market pullback our gal still has accumulated over $250,000!

A quarter of a million bucks is a huge chunk of money for a young employee!  And our gal achieved this in just over 5 years. Anyone should be excited to approach a milestone like that.  Missy will have a huge advantage for having started so young with her investing.  Can you see how a young person can really start to build wealth just by starting and steadily contributing? It also helps to remember that much of this time Missy has been investing the overall market was high for most of 2020 and 2021.  You can see all those buys and accumulation really have an impact when the market starts heading back up like over the past 24 months.

She has plenty in her emergency fund and a nice percentage of her individual stocks in a Roth IRA.  Those tax free withdrawals from the Roth will be terrific with her long time horizon to grow those assets.

Also, Missy can afford to be patient with her individual stock holdings when she takes a look at her total asset pie.  She still has plenty of index funds (VTSAX) in her 401k and when growth stocks falter those index funds cushion the blow in overall asset accumulation.

Remember, we have a long time horizon for our investments!

What Missy owns

Maybe we overpaid for a few of these holdings in the past but a portfolio something like this should do quite well going forward from these levels.

These are all the stocks Missy has sold from her portfolio

Sometimes you just have to admit when you were wrong and take out the trash.  Anyhow, hindsight is always 20-20 but it’s worth keeping track and reminding yourself that patience is often rewarded.

These holdings graphics can be a little difficult to see but fortunately for you I have added Missy's holdings to a Google Sheet.  Here's a link in case you want to take a deeper dive.   Link to Google Spreadsheet of Missy's Portfolio. This link updates essentially in live time.  

Feel free to save yourself a copy of any of these Google Sheets and modify them any way you please. Noteworthy this month is the stocks Missy bought after selling others are outperforming the sold stocks by over $5000! So we are vindicated by long term thinking and correcting our mistakes.

We keep score against VTSAX because that index is so common for many personal finance blowhards to recommend.  You might recognize some of the blowhards swimming in the Reddit cesspool and waxing eloquently about a subject where many have never accomplished anything.  They just parrot whatever they heard from an internet guru onto a screen and call themselves an "expert."

You can see that our gal has made 68 buys totaling $88,800.  As of May 15, 2025, 31 of her 44 current holdings are beating the VTSAX index. We are now only 7% behind VTSAX. Also, if you decide to open the Missy Holdings Google Sheet you can see a tab where I compiled her sold stocks versus their replacement holdings and the replacement stocks are ahead of the sold stocks by about $5000 today. I anticipate that number to grow as times goes by.

We both learned some lessons and keep the faith that we will eventually outperform the index funds over a long period.

Late 2021 and all of 2022 were horrible years for growth stocks and our gal is fortunate to have a long time horizon.  2022 was worse for growth but there are signs things have stabilized for those assets.  This is where being consistent and realizing this decline shall pass can pay massive future financial dividends.  Our gal just keep on chopping that wood.

How do you feel about United Health to return to glory?