45 Stocks with Uncertainty Rating Changes in Q2

The second quarter of 2025 saw the financial markets and global economy roiled by President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs. Against this backdrop, Morningstar analysts reassessed the Uncertainty Ratings of a number of companies.

This rating plays a critical role in the calculations behind Morningstar star ratings, which indicate whether a stock is undervalued, fairly valued, or overvalued. Assessing a stock involves more than comparing its price to an estimate of its fair value. Some companies have more predictable cash flows than others, which influences how confident investors can be in these estimates. Morningstar equity analysts assign Uncertainty Ratings to help gauge the potential range of outcomes for a company’s fair value, based on its business model stability, financial strength, and other risks. Stocks with higher Uncertainty Ratings require a larger margin of safety to move between being overvalued, fairly valued, or undervalued.

Each quarter, we screen US-listed stocks covered by Morningstar analysts for any changes in moat ratings. In the second quarter of 2025, out of the 847 stocks on our coverage list, 45 saw changes in their Uncertainty Ratings. Uncertainty Ratings were raised for 41 stocks and lowered for four.

A full list of stocks with Uncertainty Rating adjustments can be found at the bottom of this article.

Uncertainty Ratings Across Morningstar’s US Coverage

Following the second quarter’s changes, of the 847 US-listed stocks covered by Morningstar, three were rated Extreme, 125 were rated Very High, 306 were rated High, 348 were rated Medium, and 65 were rated Low. In the year to date, 0.4% of the stocks were rated Extreme, 14.8% were rated Very High, 36.1% were rated High, 41.1% were rated |Medium, and 7.7% were rated Low.

How Uncertainty Ratings Work

Morningstar equity analysts assign fair value estimates to the stocks they cover. However, the estimate represents only one possible outcome. In particular, some companies have more stability and predictability to their cash flows than others, and would thus have a smaller dispersion of potential outcomes. Cash flows are a key variable in Morningstar’s fair value ratings.

A star rating takes into account a stock’s current price, its fair value estimate, and the level of uncertainty. In this way, it is a risk-adjusted measure of a stock’s attractiveness.

Morningstar analysts assign companies one of five Uncertainty Ratings: Low, Medium, High, Very High, or Extreme, based on factors like operating and financial leverage, regulatory risks, economic sensitivity, product concentration, pricing power, and exposure to environmental, social, and governance risks.

Here’s a closer look at the five largest stocks with uncertainty rating changes in the second quarter.

UnitedHealth Group

• Morningstar Rating: ★★★★
• Sector: Healthcare
• Industry: Healthcare Plans

“In May 2025, we raised our Uncertainty Rating on UnitedHealth to High from Medium on company-specific challenges that continue to mount and create a murky profit outlook in addition to broader regulatory concerns.”

—Julie Utterback, senior equity analyst

Advanced Micro Devices

• Morningstar Rating: ★★★
• Sector: Technology
• Industry: Semiconductors

“We raise our Uncertainty Rating for AMD to Very High from High, mostly due to potential tariffs and restrictions on AI sales into China. AMD sees a massive opportunity to gain share in GPUs targeting AI applications, but we view Nvidia as a clear leader here with a wide economic moat in not only hardware design but also associated software tools. Even if AMD’s GPU designs are up to par (or better), we view the associated software tools as a hurdle where AMD is behind today and will need to catch up to Nvidia. Further, we expect leading hyperscale cloud computing customers to continue to invest in AI processors. Google’s Tensor processing units and Amazon’s Trainium and Inferentia chips were designed with AI workloads in mind, while Microsoft and Meta have announced semiconductor design plans.”

—Brian Colello, senior equity analyst

HSBC Holdings

• Morningstar Rating: ★★★
• Sector: Financial Services
• Industry: Banks – Diversified

“We assign a Uncertainty Rating of High to HSBC, having changed it from Medium in April 2025. Its business in Hong Kong is quite stable and its results historically have been less volatile than those of many other global banks, and the UK business is also not particularly risky relative to some other banks, in our view, but large uncertainties over the effects from US tariffs applied to imports from China and other countries make it difficult to forecast future earnings and may lead to heightened share-price volatility.”

—Michael Makdad, senior equity analyst

Goldman Sachs

• Morningstar Rating: ★★
• Sector: Financial Services
• Industry: Capital Markets

“We’re raising our Uncertainty Rating for Goldman Sachs to High from Medium, consistent with our quantitative methodology as well as our qualitative assessment that the firm’s exposure to highly cyclical end markets like investment banking and trading adds substantial uncertainty to our forecasts. Our rating also captures the temporary impact of an uncertain equilibrium in global trade: while the US is a net goods importer by a wide margin, it is a net services exporter, and it is feasible that a protracted trade war could inspire retaliation that affects US financial services businesses. Provided that this uncertainty eases, we will revisit these assumptions and note that Goldman’s business bears significantly less risk than it did 15 or 20 years ago due to less risky trading activities, more revenue diversification, and lower leverage.”

—Sean Dunlop, director

ServiceNow

• Morningstar Rating: ★★★
• Sector: Technology
• Industry: Software – Application

“We assign ServiceNow a Morningstar Uncertainty Rating of High. While valuation is high relative to peers—we would argue deservedly so, given the company’s strong market position and superior growth prospects—any execution misstep or issue that arises during quarterly earnings updates is likely to have a magnified impact on the shares.”

—Dan Romanoff, senior equity research analyst