UnitedHealth Group on Thursday joined the new club of very large American companies experiencing very large single-day stock losses, with a 23% drop wiping out more than $100 billion of shareholders’ value by midday.

The plunge marked investors’ reaction to a substantially lower projection from UnitedHealth executives for the full-year performance of Minnesota’s largest company.

It’s a huge blow to the retirement and investment savings for the 19,000 employees at the company’s Eden Prairie headquarters and offices around Minnesota.

The broader state economy will feel an impact from the gut punch UnitedHealth workers have taken, as they turn less optimistic about their own finances at a time when recession expectations are already growing. Until this morning, the company was one of the few in Minnesota that seemed to be weathering the tariff-related storm.

Politicians often try to draw a distinction between Wall Street and Main Street, but there is none, as periods of major upheaval in investment markets like we are now experiencing show.

Stock values hit all-time highs just two months ago, but confidence was shaky and investors this year have repeatedly punished companies because of surprise events.

For instance, in late January, shares in AI chipmaker Nvidia fell 17% in one day, a loss of $579 billion in market value, when a Chinese company revealed a lower-cost way to deliver AI information.

More recently, President Donald Trump’s on-again-off-again tariff policies soured investors on nearly all companies involved in international trade and pushed the broader stock market into bear territory.