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UNH Health insurers’ big gains year-to-date are not good news
for the broader economy, writes senior editor Igor Greenwald.
I’m not a big believer in extrapolating past performance into
the future. Nor do I believe that looking at the past six months
is any more insightful than evaluating the last three weeks,
five minutes, or 200 days.  Nevertheless, a long weekend at the
year’s midway point is as good a time as any to look what’s been
working, and not working, and it makes sense to draw the line
where the year began.  A lot has changed since the start of
2011, and I think we’ve learned a couple big things we weren’t
sure of six months ago:    • The earnings of listed companies
can grow nicely even when the domestic economy’s not doing so
well. But on the other hand, the valuation multiples of listed
companies could contract if their success is seen as
unsustainable given the state of the broader economy   • The
US—and in particular US government