Currently, there are 2.52B common shares owned by the public and among those 2.51B shares have been available to trade.
The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of -3.98% and -7.28% over the past three months. MRK shares are trading -22.37% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance down to -41.37% lower. It has a 12-month low price of $73.31 and touched a high of $134.63 over the same period. MRK has an average intraday trading volume of 17.12 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 -3.04%, -8.11%, and -21.87% respectively.
Institutional ownership of Merck & Co Inc (NYSE: MRK) shares accounts for 80.30% of the company’s 2.52B shares outstanding.
It has a market capitalization of $193.93B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 0.38. The stock’s trailing 12-month PE ratio is 11.24, while the earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at $6.87. The company has a PEG of 0.97 and a Quick Ratio of 1.16 with the debt-to-equity ratio at 0.72. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 2.95% over the week and 3.15% over the month.
Analysts forecast that Merck & Co Inc (MRK) will achieve an EPS of 2.05 for the current quarter, 2.46 for the next quarter and 9.71 for current fiscal year. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is 1.89 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of 1.89. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was 2.28 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to increase by 16.48%, and 9.10% over the next financial year. EPS should shrink at an annualized rate of 11.65% over the next five years, compared to 12.04% over the past 5-year period.
Looking at the support for the MRK, a number of firms have released research notes about the stock. Citigroup stated their Neutral rating for the stock in a research note on May 14, 2025, with the firm’s price target at $84. Cantor Fitzgerald coverage for the Merck & Co Inc (MRK) stock in a research note released on April 22, 2025 offered a Neutral rating with a price target of $85. Deutsche Bank was of a view on February 18, 2025 that the stock is Hold, while TD Cowen gave the stock Hold rating on February 10, 2025, issuing a price target of $121- $100. Truist on their part issued Hold rating on January 08, 2025.
