Merck (MRK) ended the recent trading session at $99.01, demonstrating a +1.42% change from the preceding day's closing price. The stock outpaced the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.21%. On the other hand, the Dow registered a gain of 1.35%, and the technology-centric Nasdaq decreased by 0.26%.
The pharmaceutical company's shares have seen an increase of 6.75% over the last month, surpassing the Medical sector's gain of 3.7% and the S&P 500's gain of 0.89%.
Market participants will be closely following the financial results of Merck in its upcoming release. The company is forecasted to report an EPS of $2.07, showcasing a 20.35% upward movement from the corresponding quarter of the prior year. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $16.16 billion, up 3.43% from the year-ago period.
Regarding the entire year, the Zacks Consensus Estimates forecast earnings of $8.98 per share and revenue of $64.78 billion, indicating changes of +17.39% and +0.95%, respectively, compared to the previous year.
Any recent changes to analyst estimates for Merck should also be noted by investors. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of near-term business trends. With this in mind, we can consider positive estimate revisions a sign of optimism about the business outlook.
Our research demonstrates that these adjustments in estimates directly associate with imminent stock price performance. Investors can capitalize on this by using the Zacks Rank. This model considers these estimate changes and provides a simple, actionable rating system.
The Zacks Rank system, ranging from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), possesses a remarkable history of outdoing, externally audited, with #1 stocks returning an average annual gain of +25% since 1988. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection has moved 0.14% lower. As of now, Merck holds a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).
Digging into valuation, Merck currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 10.88. This indicates a discount in contrast to its industry's Forward P/E of 13.74.
We can also see that MRK currently has a PEG ratio of 0.89. This popular metric is similar to the widely-known P/E ratio, with the difference being that the PEG ratio also takes into account the company's expected earnings growth rate. As the market closed yesterday, the Large Cap Pharmaceuticals industry was having an average PEG ratio of 1.59.
The Large Cap Pharmaceuticals industry is part of the Medical sector. Currently, this industry holds a Zacks Industry Rank of 183, positioning it in the bottom 26% of all 250+ industries.
The Zacks Industry Rank gauges the strength of our individual industry groups by measuring the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks within the groups. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.
Be sure to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and many more, on Zacks.com.
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Merck & Co., Inc. (MRK): Free Stock Analysis ReportThis article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).
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