Merck stock: buy or sell?
Updated on:
August 19th, 2019
5
Merck & Co., Inc. provides healthcare solutions worldwide. It operates in four segments: Pharmaceutical, Animal Health, Healthcare Services, and Alliances.
Should I buy Merck stock?
Make a decision about when to buy or sell stocks is one of the hardest parts of being a trader or investor. That's why is so important to define your own trading plan that matches with your character as inversor. At Stocks2.com, we use very simple but trusted and powerful trend following trading strategies. Simple things usually work the best.Currently, Merck stock doesn't match any of these trading strategies, so our recommendation is not to buy.
| Buy setup | Elegible |
|---|---|
| New all-time high | No |
| New 52 week high | No |
| Price crossing up 200d MA | No |
| 100d MA crossing up 200d MA | No |
Is Merck stock a buy?
Everyday, hundreds of stock ratings are posted by financial analysts to indicate a particular stock's attractiveness.
At Stocks2.com, we collected 15 ratings published for MRK stock in the last 30 days. The general sentiment of these ratings is bullish for MRK stock, with 11 positive ratings.| Date | Analyst / Broker | Previous rating | Current rating |
| 2019-8-7 | Argus | Hold | Buy |
| 2019-8-5 | Mizuho | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-8-16 | Svb Leerink | n/a | Outperform |
| 2019-8-15 | HSBC | n/a | Neutral |
| 2019-8-14 | DZ Bank | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-8-14 | Barclays | n/a | Sell |
| 2019-6-21 | Morgan Stanley | n/a | Overweight |
| 2019-6-21 | Citigroup | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-6-21 | Bank of America | n/a | n/a |
| 2019-6-14 | JPMorgan Chase & Co. | n/a | Overweight |
| 2019-5-28 | Goldman Sachs Group | n/a | Neutral |
| 2019-5-2 | UBS Group | Buy | Buy |
| 2019-5-1 | Bank of America | Buy | Buy |
| 2019-3-4 | Cantor Fitzgerald | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-3-29 | Cantor Fitzgerald | n/a | Buy |
Merck stock analysis
Daily outlook
Merck appreciated a decent 1.30% and closed at $86.17.
Merck ended today at $86.17 and appreciated a decent 1.30%. From a daily perspective, MRK is in a short term uptrend after plotting its last bottom ($82.16, on August 5th) higher than the previous bottom, and its last top ($86.79, on Tuesday) also over the previous top. Now trading in between its last bottom and last top MRK might consolidate in a plain range, waiting to break out over $86.79 or down under $82.16. On Jul/15 MRK price bounced up over the SMA of 100 days demonstrating to be a significant support for this stock. Since June when SMA50d and SMA100d crossed up, MRK price gained $2.34 per share (2.79%). On July, MRK hit a new all time high, pushing higher than on June tops. Check different trading setups that use ATHs as triggers.
Weekly outlook
Shares of Merck ended this week at $86.17 and stepped up a tiny 1.30%. Early July MRK plummed a scary -7.36% in just one week.
Not so far away is the last all-time high Merck marked early July. Late April MRK price bounced up over the SMA of 40 weeks that acted as support stopping new slides.
Merck stock price history
Merck stock historical price chart
MRK stock reached all-time highs on July with a price of $87.07.
Merck stock price target is $94.40
Predicting the price evolution of a stock or any financial instrument in a reliable and repeatable way is probably impossible. However, financial institutions invest time and resources to provide the most accurated estimations to help investors to make their decisions. You should not follow the analysts' MRK stock price predictions in the hope that they will be met as they may be wrong and not met. We detected 12 price targets for MRK stock posted in the last 30 days:| Date | Analyst / Broker | Action | Previous target | Current target | Diff |
| 2019-8-7 | Argus | Raises Target | n/a | $105.00 | - |
| 2019-8-5 | Mizuho | Reiterates | n/a | $97.00 | - |
| 2019-8-16 | Svb Leerink | Initiates | n/a | $103.00 | - |
| 2019-6-21 | Morgan Stanley | Raises Target | $84.00 | $90.00 | 7.1% |
| 2019-6-21 | Citigroup | Raises Target | $84.00 | $95.00 | 13.1% |
| 2019-6-21 | Bank of America | Raises Target | $91.00 | $96.00 | 5.5% |
| 2019-6-14 | JPMorgan Chase & Co. | Raises Target | $90.00 | $93.00 | 3.3% |
| 2019-5-28 | Goldman Sachs Group | Initiates | n/a | $85.00 | - |
| 2019-5-2 | UBS Group | Raises Target | $87.00 | $88.00 | 1.1% |
| 2019-5-1 | Bank of America | Raises Target | $90.00 | $91.00 | 1.1% |
| 2019-3-4 | Cantor Fitzgerald | Reiterates | n/a | $95.00 | - |
| 2019-3-29 | Cantor Fitzgerald | Reiterates | n/a | $95.00 | - |
| (in average) | $87.70 | $94.40 | 8.0% |
Financials and fundamental analysis
Earnings date and Earnings per Share
Since last April, when Merck posted its last earnings report, it jumped a phenomenal 12.98%. Unfortunately, reported EPS is not yet available in our database.| Quarter | Reporting date | Estimated EPS | Actual EPS | Surprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-Q2 | - | n/a | 1.27 | n/a |
| 2017-Q3 | 2017-10-27 | 1.03 | 1.11 | 7.8% |
| 2017-Q4 | 2018-02-02 | 0.94 | 0.98 | 4.3% |
| 2018-Q1 | 2018-05-01 | 0.99 | 1.05 | 6.1% |
| 2018-Q2 | 2018-07-27 | 1.03 | 1.06 | 2.9% |
| 2018-Q3 | 2018-10-25 | 1.16 | 1.19 | 2.6% |
| 2018-Q4 | 2019-02-01 | 1.03 | 1.04 | 1.0% |
| 2019-Q1 | 2019-04-30 | 1.08 | n/a | n/a |
| 2019-Q2 | - | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| 2019-Q3 | - | n/a | n/a | n/a |
Annual financial results
Compared to 2017, last anual revenues report draw a fine growth of 5.41% to $42,294.00 M USD. When comparing 2018 vs 2017, on the other hand, profit margin (that is, the net income divided by revenues) jumped a 8.74% to 14.71%. Merck presents anual results in December, and to evaluate its evolution since then, we estimate annual sales and income figures by adding results from the last 4 quarters. This is called TTM (or Twelve Trailing Months). So, Merck TTM sales up to March 2019 were $43,073.00 and earnings $8,399.00 M dollars. When comparing this TTM figures with the last reported annuality, we can esteem Merck business evolution since December 2018: Annual turnover up to March, compared to lastest yearly report, grew a slightly good 1.84%. Regarding profit margin, Merck inched 4.79% to 14.71%| Year | Sales | YoY | Income/(margin) | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | $44,090 M | - | $4,400 M10.0% | - |
| 2014 | $42,237 M | -4.20% | $11,920 M28.2% | 170.91% |
| 2015 | $39,498 M | -6.48% | $4,442 M11.2% | -62.73% |
| 2016 | $39,807 M | 0.78% | $3,920 M9.8% | -11.75% |
| 2017 | $40,122 M | 0.79% | $2,394 M6.0% | -38.93% |
| 2018 | $42,294 M | 5.41% | $6,220 M14.7% | 159.82% |
| TTM | $43,073 M | 1.84% | $8,399 M19.5% | 35.03% |
Quarterly financial results
Merck posted $10,816.00 million in sales for 2019-Q1, a -1.65% decline compared to previous quarter. Reported quarter income marked $2,915.00 million with a profit margin of 26.95%. Profit margin climbed a 10.34% compared to previous quarter when profit margin was 16.61%. When comparing sales to same quarter last year, Merck sales marked an excellent increase and escalated a 7.76%.| Quarter | Sales1 | QoQ2 | Income1/(margin) | QoQ2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-Q2 | $9,880 M | - | $1,950 M19.7% | - |
| 2017-Q3 | $10,310 M | 4.35% | $-56 M-0.5% | -102.87% |
| 2017-Q4 | $10,433 M | 1.19% | $-1,046 M-10.0% | 1,767.86% |
| 2018-Q1 | $10,037 M | -3.80% | $736 M7.3% | -170.36% |
| 2018-Q2 | $10,465 M | 4.26% | $1,707 M16.3% | 131.93% |
| 2018-Q3 | $10,794 M | 3.14% | $1,950 M18.1% | 14.24% |
| 2018-Q4 | $10,998 M | 1.89% | $1,827 M16.6% | -6.31% |
| 2019-Q1 | $10,816 M | -1.65% | $2,915 M27.0% | 59.55% |
Merck ownership
When you are planning to buy a company, it's worth to overview its ownership structure.Merck shares owned by insiders (that is, founders, CEO, CTO, main executives or other management staff) currently counts a 0.08% of all shares.
In case of Merck stock, 78.28% of its shares are held by institutions (mutual funds, pension funds, big banks and other large financial institutions). Bearish positions for MRK stock account 0.00%, no big difference from last month.
For a better understanding, the following table shows ownership data compared to other related stocks:
| MRK | AMGN | BMY | GSK | JNJ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Market cap | $221.5 B | $124.4 B | $76.6 B | $100.1 B | $349.4 B |
| Total shares | 2,570.0 M | 609.9 M | 1,630.0 M | 2,490.0 M | 2,660.0 M |
| Float shares | 2,560.0 M | 598.3 M | 1,630.0 M | 2,440.0 M | 2,630.0 M |
| - Institutional holdings (%) | 78.3% | 81.9% | 75.0% | 11.0% | 69.2% |
| - Insider holdings (%) | 0.1% | 0.2% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.1% |
| Shares in short selling | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
Merck summary
| Monday, August 19th, 2019 | |
|---|---|
| Open | $84.45 |
| Close | $86.17 |
| Day range | $85.46 - $86.53 |
| Previous close | $85.06 |
| Session gain | 1.30% |
| Average true range | $1.65 |
| 50d mov avg | $83.59 |
| 100d mov avg | $81.15 |
| 200d mov avg | $78.56 |
| Daily pattern | lt06a |
| Weekly pattern | |
Merck performance
To better understand Merck performance you must becnhmark its gains with other related stocks in same sector or industry. For Merck, the comparison is made against Amgen, Bristol-Myers Squibb, GlaxoSmithKline, , Eli Lilly and, Novartis, Pfizer, and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries.| Stock | 3m | 6m | 12m |
|---|---|---|---|
| MRKMerck | 6.87% | 8.13% | 28.25% |
| AMGNAmgen | 20.93% | 10.03% | 6.52% |
| BMYBristol-Myers Squ... | 1.16% | -7.47% | -20.35% |
| GSKGlaxoSmithKline | 3.02% | 1.23% | 2.45% |
| JNJ | -4.58% | -2.38% | 0.31% |
| LLYEli Lilly and | -4.20% | -8.75% | 7.00% |
| NVSNovartis | 2.24% | 13.57% | 23.10% |
| PFEPfizer | -15.67% | -16.79% | -14.78% |
| SNY | 0.29% | 2.86% | 4.11% |
| TEVATeva Pharmaceutic... | -44.88% | -64.35% | -73.53% |
Merck competitors
We picked a few stocks to conform a list of Merck competitors to watch if you are interested in investing in MRK:- Amgen (AMGN)
- Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY)
- GlaxoSmithKline (GSK)
- (JNJ)
- Eli Lilly and (LLY)
- Novartis (NVS)
- Pfizer (PFE)
- (SNY)
- Teva Pharmaceutical Industries (TEVA)
Latest Merck stock news
- InvestorPlaceA Pairs Prescription for CVS Stock and MerckJuly 15, 2019
- InvestorPlaceFriday’s Vital Data: Bed Bath & Beyond, CVS and MerckJuly 12, 2019
- Seeking AlphaNotes And Analysis From Merck's Investor DayJuly 11, 2019
- Seeking AlphaMerck: Don't Miss ItJune 28, 2019
- Seeking AlphaMerck Throws Its Hat Into The Ring With Keytruda For Treating Subset Of Lung Cancer PatientsJune 26, 2019