The trading price of Merck & Co Inc (NYSE:MRK) floating higher at last check on current market day and closing at $99.36, 1.01% higher than its previous close.
Traders who pay close attention to intraday price movement should know that it has been fluctuating between $98.434 and $99.53. The company’s P/E ratio in the trailing 12-month period was 20.81, while its 5Y monthly beta was 0.411. In examining the 52-week price action we see that the stock hit a 52-week high of $134.63 and a 52-week low of $94.48. Over the past month, the stock has lost -2.24% in value.
Merck & Co Inc, whose market valuation is $251.34 billion at the time of this writing, is expected to release its quarterly earnings report in January. The dividend yield on the company stock is 3.14%, while its Forward Dividend ratio is 3.12. Investors’ optimism about the company’s current quarter earnings report is understandable. Analysts have predicted the quarterly earnings per share to grow by 1.81 per share this quarter, however they have predicted annual earnings per share of 7.74 for current year and 9.51 for next year.
Analysts have forecast the company to bring in revenue of 15.47B for the current quarter, with the likely lows of 15.06B and highs of 16B. From the analysts’ viewpoint, the consensus estimate for the company’s annual revenue is 63.99B.
On the technical side, indicators suggest MRK has a 100% Sell on average for the short term. According to the data of the stock’s medium term indicators, the stock is currently averaging as a 100% Sell, while an average of long term indicators suggests that the stock is currently 100% Sell.
Here is the average analyst rating on the stock as represented by 1.00 to 5.00, with the extremes of 1.00 and 5.00 suggesting the stock should be considered as either strong buy or strong sell respectively. The number of analysts that have assigned MRK a recommendation rating is 19. Out of them, 0 rate it a Hold, while 19 recommend Buy, whereas 0 assign an Overweight rating. 0 analyst(s) have tagged Merck & Co Inc (MRK) as Underweight, while 0 advise Sell. Analysts have rated the stock Buy, likely urging investors to take advantage of the opportunity to add to their holdings of the company’s shares.
If we dig deeper into the stock’s outlook, we see that the stock’s PEG is 0.74, which symbolizes a positive outlook. A quick review shows that MRK’s price is currently -1.12% off the SMA20 and -1.71% off the SMA50. The RSI metric on the 14-day chart is currently showing 46.08, and weekly volatility stands at 1.15%. When measured over the past 30 days, the indicator reaches 1.87%. Merck & Co Inc (NYSE:MRK)’s beta value is currently sitting at 0.41, while the Average True Range indicator is currently displaying 1.84. With analysts defining $110-$148 as the low and high price targets, we arrive at a consensus price target of $138 for the trailing 12-month period. The current price is about -10.71% off the estimated low and -48.95% off the forecast high, based on this estimate. Investors will be thrilled if MRK’s share price rises to $138, which is the median consensus price. At that level, MRK’s share price would be -38.89% below current price.
To see how Merck & Co Inc stock has been performing today in comparison to its peers in the industry, here are the numbers: MRK stock’s performance was 1.01% at last check in today’s session, and -8.86% in the past year. Merck & Co Inc has a P/E ratio of 20.81.
An evaluation of the daily trading volume of Merck & Co Inc (NYSE:MRK) indicates that the 3-month average is 11.06 million. However, this figure has increased over the past 10 days to an average of 10.9.
Currently, records show that 2.53 billion of the company’s shares remain outstanding. The insiders hold 0.09% of outstanding shares, whereas institutions hold 78.94%. The stats also highlight that short interest as of 2024-12-13, stood at 32.03 million shares, resulting in a short ratio of 2.4 at that time. From this, we can conclude that short interest is 127.00 of the company’s total outstanding shares. It is noteworthy that short shares in December were up slightly from the previous month’s figure, which was 26.32 million. However, since the stock’s price has seen -8.86% year-to-date, investors’ interest is likely to be reignited due to its potential to move even lower.
