Breakfast News: Buffett Boost for UnitedHealth

Breakfast News: Buffett Boost for UnitedHealth

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1. Buffett and Burry Buy UnitedHealth

UnitedHealth (UNH -0.01%) popped 13% overnight on news that Warren Buffett and Michael Burry have been buying. A regulatory filing Thursday showed Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B 0.37%) bought 5 million shares worth around $1.6 billion, marking a return after dumping the stock in 2010. The company had warned of margin pressure in its second-quarter earnings update, as it faces rising medical costs and a federal investigation.

• From bearish puts to bullish calls: Burry's Scion Asset Management -- better known for bearish strategies -- has built a big call options stake in United, in addition to buying 20,000 shares, as the stock has fallen 54% in the past 12 months.
• Following Fool favorites: Scion has also taken new positions in Lululemon Athletica (LULU -2.65%) and MercadoLibre (MELI -0.19%), recommended across TMF services, plus Hidden Gems rec Bruker (BRKR -2.43%).

2. Inflation Puts Pressure on Fed

Stock futures show caution this morning as we wait for the July retail sales print -- expected to show a 0.5% month-over-month rise, down from 0.6% in June -- with S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures hovering slightly above flat.

• "PPI suggests inflation isn't the non-story some people thought": Chris Larkin at Morgan Stanley (MS 0.51%) suggested the opening "may be a little smaller" for an interest rate cut in September, after the July Producer Price Index came in much higher than expected with a 0.9% monthly jump.
• "I think today's PPI fits the narrative": Wilmington Trust's Luke Tilley, meanwhile, doesn't think we'll see more general inflation with consumers cutting back on spending, as the CME FedWatch tool predicts a 92.6% chance of a September cut -- down from 100% before yesterday's PPI news.

3. Hedge Funds Bet Big on Tech

Hedge funds have been piling into big tech on the back of the artificial intelligence (AI) surge. Bridgewater Associates, founded by Ray Dalio, more than doubled its Nvidia (NVDA 0.28%) holding in Q2 to more than 7 million shares, also upping its stakes in Alphabet (GOOG 0.46%) and Microsoft (MSFT 0.46%) by 84% and 112%, respectively.

• 5.8 million more Amazon shares: Pershing Square, run by activist investor Bill Ackman, boosted its stake in Amazon (AMZN 2.93%) in the quarter and added 21% to its Alphabet holding.
• Doubling up on Meta: Rob Citrone's Discovery Capital boosted its investment in Meta Platforms (META 0.28%) while taking a new stake in cloud services provider CoreWeave (CRWV -15.82%). The fund also added to demand for UnitedHealth by raising its holding 13%.

4. Cathie Wood Bullish on Bitcoin

Cathie Wood's Ark Invest bought in on Wednesday's Bullish (BLSH 9.75%) initial public offering (IPO), buying 2.5 million shares of the cryptocurrency exchange operator across three of its exchange-traded funds -- with ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK -1.10%) snapping up 1.74 million shares.

• More than 20 times oversubscribed: Analysts initially suggested Bullish could reach $55 to $60 when it hit the market, up from a $37 IPO price. Thursday's close of $74.63 put the market cap at $10.9 billion.
• Bitcoin backs off from record: On the day of the launch, Bitcoin hit a new all-time high of $124,457 before dropping back to around $119,200 this morning.

5. Your Take

What stocks have you added to your portfolio in the last few weeks, and why? Discuss with friends and family, or become a member to hear what your fellow Fools are saying.