Correlation Analysis
Costco Wholesale Corp vs UNITEDHEALTH GROUP INCORPORATED (Delaware)
COST vs UNH
-0.291
Light inverse
When one moves up, the other tends to move down.
Costco Wholesale Corp
↗COST
Founded in 1983, Costco Wholesale now operates a global chain of membership-based warehouse clubs, delivering high-quality goods and services at consistently low prices. As of its most recent fiscal year, Costco operated approximately 910 warehouses, serving more than 80 million members across its three geographic segments: Costco US (approximately 73% of total revenue), Costco Canada (13%), and Costco International (14%).Costco's core value proposition—quality products at unbeatable prices—has yielded consistently strong member renewal rates (93% in the US and Canada and nearly 90% internationally). About 55% of Costco's fiscal 2025 revenue came from its grocery offerings, and another 25% from general merchandise.
Market cap 451.9B
UNITEDHEALTH GROUP INCORPORATED (Delaware)
↗UNH
UnitedHealth Group is one of the largest private health insurers and provides medical benefits to about 51 million members globally, including 1 million outside the US as of December 2025. As a leader in employer-sponsored, self-directed, and government-backed insurance plans, UnitedHealth has obtained massive scale in medical insurance. Along with its insurance assets, UnitedHealth's Optum franchises help create a healthcare services colossus that spans everything from pharmaceutical benefits to providing outpatient care and analytics to affiliates and third parties.
Market cap 255.4B
Time Series
Relative Performance
Who Moves First
COST leads UNH by 6 days
COST tends to move before UNH.
After testing 13 timing shifts, the strongest relationship was -0.311 (they moved in opposite directions).
Do They Crash Together?
Correlation by Market Regime
How these series behave when markets are rising, falling, or diverging. A correlation that holds in drawdowns is very different from one that only works in rallies.
Both Rising
+0.132
15 periods · Return correlation when both series rose
Both Falling
-0.509
9 periods · Return correlation when both series fell
Diverging
-0.561
11 periods · Return correlation when series moved apart
R-Squared
8.5%
Share of variance in one series explained by the other.
Trend Agreement
58.0%
How often both series moved in the same direction period-to-period.
Overlap Quality
1,254
Deep shared window — 1,254 usable pairs.
Significance
p < 0.001
95% CI: [-0.341, -0.239]
Scatter
XY Regression
Pipeline
Data quality details
Pipeline
Data quality details
Pipeline Summary
1,254 paired data points survived the daily window.
Raw input
1,254
1,254
Normalized
1,254
1,254
Prepared
1,254
1,254
Aligned
1,254
1,254
Invalid removed
0
A: 0 / B: 0
Duplicates removed
0
A: 0 / B: 0
Alignment drops
0
A: 0 / B: 0
Series A
Costco Wholesale Corp
COST
Market cap 451.9B
Stock · 1,254 raw → 1,254 prepared
Series B
UNITEDHEALTH GROUP INCORPORATED (Delaware)
UNH
Market cap 255.4B
Stock · 1,254 raw → 1,254 prepared
Sign agreement
100.0%
How often both values share the same sign.
Zero crossings
3
Estimated crossover points between normalized spreads.
Slope
-0.1163
Linear regression slope.
Intercept
542.5445
Linear regression intercept.
Related Extremes
Highest and Lowest Correlated
COST
Costco Wholesale Corp
Highest
+0.977
Republic Services Inc.
RSG · 1,254 data points
Lowest
-0.912
Fiserv, Inc. Common Stock
FISV · 644 data points
UNH
UNITEDHEALTH GROUP INCORPORATED (Delaware)
Highest
-0.079
Exxon Mobil Corporation
XOM · 1,254 data points
Lowest
-0.611
Micron Technology, Inc.
MU · 1,254 data points
Saved 6 hours ago · ID: stock-cost-vs-stock-unh-daily