Finance
United Healthcare CEO shooting: Executives worry about safety
Closed circuit screenshots of a person of interest in the UnitedHealthcare CEO killing.
Source: NYPD
UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was fatally shot Wednesday doing something countless other American executives routinely do: Walking unaccompanied to an investor event held by his company.
But Thompson’s death this week in the heart of corporate America’s capital has sent shockwaves throughout the business world, forcing companies to rethink the risks in even the most routine executive responsibilities.
“Everyone’s scrambling to say, ‘Are we safe?'” said Chuck Randolph, chief security officer for Ontic, an Austin, Texas-based provider of threat management software. “This is an inflection point where the idea of executive protection is now raised to the board level. Everyone I know in the industry is feeling this.”
Threats against corporations have been rising for years, fueled in part by the echo chamber of social media and a more polarized political environment, according to security professionals. But the slaying on a Manhattan sidewalk of Thompson, head of the largest private health insurer in the U.S., is the highest profile such incident in decades.
Companies now worry their leaders face greater risk of being targets of violence, especially as they hold more public investor events in New York in the coming weeks.
The gunman is still at large, and his motivation isn’t known. Words written on the shell casings found at the scene may offer hints about what incited the shooter.
One question from security experts not involved in the case was whether the shooter demonstrated grievances against UnitedHealthcare in online forums and searched for information about the investor event. Several health-care companies have reacted by pulling photos of executives from websites, and health insurer Centene made an investor meeting virtual after the killing.
Thompson didn’t have a security detail with him on Wednesday morning, despite known threats against him, according to NYPD officials. None of the executives of UnitedHealth received personal security benefits, according to the company’s filings.
Cups mark the location of shell casings found at the scene where the CEO of United Healthcare Brian Thompson was reportedly shot and killed in Midtown Manhattan, in New York City, US, December 4, 2024.
Shannon Stapleton | Reuters
If Thompson had, several key factors would have been different. Personnel would have gone to the hotel before his arrival to detect threats; he also would have been accompanied by armed security who may have used an alternate hotel entrance, said Scott Stewart, a vice president of TorchStone Global.
“This was preventable,” said Stewart, who said he had nearly four decades in the industry. “I’ve never seen an executive with a comprehensive security program ever be victimized like that.”
Still, before this week’s shocking events, it wasn’t unusual for executives to decline security because of the disruption to their lives, or the image it may give, several security veterans said.
“Not every CEO needs heavy duty protection,” said the security chief of a technology firm who wasn’t given permission to speak to the press. “Senior executives are subject to threats all day long, you need a platform to” examine them and determine whether they are credible and timely, he said.
‘Guns, guards and gates’
Since Thompson’s killing, a wide spectrum of companies have sought extra protection for executives, Matthew Dumpert, managing director at Kroll Enterprise Security Risk Management, told CNBC.
In the coming weeks, there are several financial conferences in New York with CEOs scheduled to attend in person. Until now, the major concern for these events has been disruption by environmental activists or other protestors, said a manager at large bank.
“Everybody is taking a look and thinking through security for their senior people,” said an executive at a major Wall Street firm who declined to be identified out of concern it would draw attention.
Some corporate security veterans vented that they are seen as a cost center whose leaders are “buried too deeply in an organization to be listened to.”
“The bias is, security is a pain in people’s butts, and not that important,” said the person, who asked for anonymity to speak candidly.
“I hope this opens their eyes,” he said. “Risk intel and assessment is important, and security is about much more than just guns, guards and gates.”
— CNBC’s Jordan Novet, Bertha Coombs and Dan Mangan contributed to this report
Cybersecurity and enterprise software stocks have been market dogs in 2026, with fears that AI will wipe out a wide range of companies in the enterprise space dominating the narrative. But they snapped a brutal losing streak this past week, joining in the broader market rally that saw all losses from the U.S.-Iran war regained by the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500.
Cybersecurity has been “a victim of some of the AI-related headlines,” Christian Magoon, Amplify ETFs CEO, said on this week’s “ETF Edge.”
It wasn’t just niche cybersecurity names. Take Microsoft, for example, which was recently down close to 20% for the year. Its shares surged last week by 13%.
A big driver of the pummeling in software stocks was a rotation within tech by investors to AI infrastructure and semiconductors and some other names in large-cap tech, Magoon said, and since cybersecurity stocks and ETFs are heavily weighted towards software companies, they were left behind even as those businesses continue to grow on a fundamental basis.
But Wall Street now has become more bullish with the stocks at lower levels. Brent Thill, Jefferies tech analyst, said last week that the worst may be over for software stocks. “I think that this concept that software is dead, and then Anthropic and OpenAI are going to kill the entire industry, is just over-exaggerated,” he said on CNBC’s “Money Movers” on Wednesday.
“Big Short” investor Michael Burry wrote in a Substack post on Wednesday that he is becoming bullish about software stocks after the recent selloff. “Software stocks remain interesting because of accelerated extreme declines last week arising from a reflexive positive feedback loop between falling software stocks and changes in the market for their bank debt,” he wrote.
The Global X Cybersecurity ETF (BUG), is down about 12% since the beginning of the year, with top holdings including Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, Akamai Technologies and CrowdStrike. But BUG was up 12% last week. The First Trust NASDAQ Cybersecurity ETF (CIBR) is down 6% for the year, but up 9% in the past week.
Piper Sandler analyst Rob Owens reiterated an “overweight” rating on Palo Alto Networks which helped the stock pop 7% — it is now down roughly 6% on the year. Its peers saw similar moves, including CrowdStrike.
Performance of Global X cybersecurity ETF versus S&P 500 over past one-year period.
Magoon said expectations may have become too high in cybersecurity, and with a crowding effect among investors, solid results were not enough to to push stocks higher. But the down-and-then-back-up 2026 for the sector is also a reminder that when stocks fall sharply in a short period of time, opportunity may knock.
“Once you’re down over 10% in some of these subsectors, you start to see the contrarians start to say, ‘well, maybe I’ll take a look at this,'” Magoon said.
He said AI does add both opportunity and uncertainty to the cybersecurity equation, increasing demand but also introducing new competition. But he added, “I think the dip is good to buy in an AI-driven world,” specifically because the risks to companies may lead to more M&A in cyber names that benefits the stocks.
For now, investors may look for opportunity on the margins rather than rush back into beaten-up tech names. “I think investors are still going to remain underweight software,” Thill said.
But Magoon advises investors to at least take the reminder to keep an eye on niches in the market during pronounced downturns. “The best-performing are often the least bought and do the best over the next 12 months versus late-in-the-game piling on,” he said.
While that may have been a mindset that worked against the last investors into cybersecurity and enterprise software in mid-2025 when the negative sentiment started building, at least for now, it’s started working for the stocks in the sector again.
Meanwhile, this year’s biggest winner is also a good example of what can be an extended trade in either a bullish or bearish direction. Last year, institutional ownership of energy was at multi-year lows, Magoon said, referencing Bank of America data. “Reverse sentiment can be a great indicator,” he said.
But he cautioned that any selective buying of stocks that have dipped does have to contend with the risk that there is a potentially bigger drawdown in the market yet to come in 2026. That is because midterm election years historically have been marked by large drawdowns. “If you think it is bad right now, it could get a lot worse,” Magoon said. But he added that there’s a silver-lining in that data, too, for the patient investor. The market has posted very strong 12-month returns after midterm election drawdowns end. So, for investors with a longer-term time horizon and no need for short-term liquidity, Magoon said, “stick in there.”
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New innovation in the exchange-traded fund industry could come at a cost to investors during extreme conditions.
According to MFS Investment Management’s Jamie Harrison, ETFs involved in increasingly complex derivatives and less transparent markets may be in uncharted territory when it comes to violent downturns.
“Those would be something that you’d want to keep an eye on as volatility ramps up,” the firm’s head of ETF capital markets told CNBC’s “ETF Edge” this week. “As innovation continues to increase at a rapid pace within the ETF wrapper, [it’s] definitely something that we advise our clients to be really front-footed about… Lack of transparency could absolutely be an issue if we’re going to start seeing some deep sell-offs.”
His firm has been around since 1924 and is known for inventing the open-end mutual fund. Last year, ETF.com named MFS Investment Management as the best new ETF issuer.
“It’s important to do due diligence on the portfolio,” he said. “Having a firm that has deep partnerships, deep bench of subject matter experts that plays with the A-team in terms of the Street and liquidity providers available [are] super important.”
Liquidity as the real issue?
Harrison suggested the real issue is liquidity, particularly during a steep sell-off.
“We’ve all seen the news and the headlines around potential private credit ETFs. That picture becomes much more murky,” he added. “It’s up to advisors, to investors [and] to clients to really dig in and look under the hood and engage with their issuers.”
He noted investors will have to ask some tough questions.
“What does this look like in a 20% drawdown? How does this liquidity facility work? Am I going to be able to get in? Am I going to be able to get out? And if I’m able to get out, am I able to get out at a price that’s tight to NAV [net asset value], and what’s the infrastructure at your shop in terms of managing that consideration for me,” said Harrison.
Amplify ETFs’ Christian Magoon is also concerned about these newer ETF strategies could weather a monster drawdown. He listed private credit as a red flag.
“If your ETF owns private credit, I think it’s worth taking a look at, kind of what the standards are around liquidity and how that ETF is trading, because that should be a bit of a mismatch between the trading pace of ETFs and the underlying asset,” the firm’s CEO said in the same interview.
Magoon also highlighted potential issues surrounding equity-linked notes. The notes provide fixed income security while offering potentially higher returns linked to stocks or equity indexes.
“Those could potentially be in stress due to redemptions and the underlying credit risk. That’s another kind of unique derivative,” Magoon said. “I would very closely look at any ETF that has equity-linked notes should we get into a major drawdown or there be a contagion in private credit or something related to the banking system.”
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