By Russ Britt, MarketWatch

LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) Two health-care giants, Johnson & Johnson and UnitedHealth Group Inc., moved higher Tuesday after the companies reported third-quarter earnings that beat analyst estimates.

Shares of Johnson & Johnson /quotes/zigman/230812/quotes/nls/jnj JNJ +1.28% got the boost that many investors were looking for, climbing more than a buck at one point as the health-care conglomerate said adjusted third-quarter earnings were $1.25 a share. That was ahead of the FactSet consensus of analyst estimates, which came in at $1.19 a share.

Citigroup Chief Executive Vikram Pandit is stepping down, effective immediately, and will be succeeded by Michael Corbat.

J&J said net income for the quarter was $2.63 billion, or $1.05 per share including one-time charges, compared with $3.2 billion, or $1.15 a share, for the same period a year ago. Sales were $17.1 billion against last years $16 billion. The FactSet consensus called for sales of $17.5 billion, though analysts said the Street consensus was closer to $17 billion, meaning the company came in ahead of forecasts.

J&J also increased its own forecast for full-year results, saying that 2012 earnings should come in at $5.05 to $5.10 a share, up from its earlier prediction of $5.00 to $5.07 a share.

J&J shares should trade higher today in reaction to what we view as a strong, basically clean quarterly beat, Leerink Swann analyst Danielle Antalffy said in a note to clients.

J&J shares were up 78 cents, or 1.1%, to $69.38 in recent action.

UnitedHealth /quotes/zigman/258846/quotes/nls/unh UNH -1.11% , meanwhile, had a similar earnings report but it wasnt as surprising to investors, and so the share boost wasnt as great. UnitedHealth previewed its earnings recently. Shares were up marginally to $57.67 in recent action.

The company said net income was $1.56 billion, or $1.50 a share, compared with $1.27 billion, or $1.17 a share. Revenue for the health-insurance behemoth was $27.3 billion against last years $25.3 billion. Analysts said they had expected the company would earn $1.34 a share.

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Health-care Stocks: J&J, UnitedHealth get a lift from earnings reports