BlackRock Fund Advisors recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Merck & Co Inc (NYSE:MRK). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Healthcare company by 0.58% to 129.88 million shares with purchase of 0.75 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 5.13% valued currently at $13.31 billion. In addition, Wellington Management Co. LLP raised its holdings by 5.2 million to 82.44 million shares. And Geode Capital Management LLC has lifted its position by 2.56% or 1.35 million shares – to 54.07 million shares.
With over 11.75 million Merck & Co Inc (MRK) shares trading Tuesday and a closing price of $113.24 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $1.33 billion. The shares have shown a negative half year performance of -0.95% and its price on 01/02/24 gained nearly 3.87%. Currently, there are 2.54B common shares owned by the public and among those 2.53B shares have been available to trade.
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An analysis of what Wall Street brokers have to say about the expected price targets for this stock gives us this picture: 27 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for MRK have a consensus price objective of $123.91. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $135.00 and a low of $103.00. The average price target is 8.61% above its recent price level and a downside to the estimated low will see the stock lose -9.94% over that period. But an upside of 16.12% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $125.00.
Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 86 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 42 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 802,207 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 44 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 768,565 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in Merck & Co Inc are Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, Vanguard 500 Index Fund, and Fidelity 500 Index Fund. Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF owns 79.55 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $8.15 billion. The company bought an additional 0.11 million shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 3.14% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard 500 Index Fund bought 0.29 million shares to see its total holdings expand to 61.28 million shares valued at over $6.28 billion and representing 2.42% of the shares outstanding. Fidelity 500 Index Fund bought 0.23 million shares to bring its total holdings to over 29.38 million shares at a value of $3.01 billion. Fidelity 500 Index Fund now owns shares totaling to 1.16% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of Merck & Co Inc (NYSE: MRK) opened at $109.16, up $0.14 from a prior closing price of $109.02. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of 5.14% and 10.42% over the past three months. MRK shares are trading 3.87% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance up to 2.18% higher. It has a 12-month low price of $99.14 and touched a high of $119.65 over the same period. MRK has an average intraday trading volume of 8.05 million shares. The stock is trading above its simple moving averages at the SMA20, SMA50, and SMA200, as the current price level is off by 6.82%, 8.97%, and 4.68% respectively.
Institutional ownership of Merck & Co Inc (NYSE: MRK) shares accounts for 77.44% of the company’s 2.54B shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 36.84%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 40.98% and 0.14% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $286.95B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 0.36. The stock’s trailing 12-month PE ratio is 62.90, while the earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at $1.80. The company has a PEG of 6.18 and a Quick Ratio of 1.12 with the debt-to-equity ratio at 0.85. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 1.38% over the week and 1.56% over the month.
Analysts forecast that Merck & Co Inc (MRK) will achieve an EPS of $0.1 for the current quarter, $1.81 for the next quarter and $7.69 for 2024. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is -$0.14 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $1.7. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was $1.62 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to decrease by -79.65%, and 459.22% over the next financial year. EPS should shrink at an annualized rate of 10.18% over the next five years, compared to 45.70% over the past 5-year period.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 27 brokerage firm advisors rate Merck & Co Inc (MRK) as a “Strong Buy” at a consensus score of 1.52. Specifically, 18 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 5 of the 27 advise that investors “hold,” and 0 rated it as a “Sell.”
Looking at the support for the MRK, a number of firms have released research notes about the stock. Deutsche Bank stated their Buy rating for the stock in a research note on November 09, 2023, with the firm’s price target at $115.
