Health-care companies were more or less flat as traders digested a mixed earnings season.

While the health-care industry group was among the weakest on the S&P 500 for first-quarter earnings, the tally was skewed by a couple of large companies that ran into growth trouble, said J.D. Joyce, president of financial advisory Joyce Wealth Management.

First-quarter earnings contracted by 25% from a year earlier for the health-care industry group, but the majority of that reflected Bristol Myers Squibb, according to data from FactSet.

Indeed, if Bristol Myers were excluded from the calculation for S&P 500 aggregate first-quarter earnings growth, the 5% increase would Shares of clinical-state biopharmaceutical concern Praxis Precision Medicines fell after it reported a wider-than-anticipated quarterly loss.

Not-for-profit insurer and healthcare provider Kaiser Permanente has been working with investment bank Jefferies Financial Group in recent months to sell up to $3.5 billion of private-fund stakes to secondary buyers, according to several people involved with secondary deals.


Write to Rob Curran at rob.curran@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

05-13-24 1705ET