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Merck (MRK) Stock Sinks As Market Gains: What You Should Know

Merck (MRK) closed the most recent trading day at $81.21, moving -0.22% from the previous trading session. This change lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.28%. Elsewhere, the Dow gained 0.07%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 0.71%.

Heading into today, shares of the pharmaceutical company had lost 3.79% over the past month, lagging the Medical sector's loss of 3.3% and the S&P 500's gain of 1.93% in that time.

Investors will be hoping for strength from MRK as it approaches its next earnings release, which is expected to be July 30, 2019. The company is expected to report EPS of $1.16, up 9.43% from the prior-year quarter. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $10.91 billion, up 4.21% from the year-ago period.

MRK's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $4.74 per share and revenue of $44.56 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of +9.22% and +5.36%, respectively.

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Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for MRK. These recent revisions tend to reflect the evolving nature of short-term business trends. With this in mind, we can consider positive estimate revisions a sign of optimism about the company's business outlook.

Based on our research, we believe these estimate revisions are directly related to near-team stock moves. To benefit from this, we have developed the Zacks Rank, a proprietary model which takes these estimate changes into account and provides an actionable rating system.

The Zacks Rank system ranges from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell). It has a remarkable, outside-audited track record of success, with #1 stocks delivering an average annual return of +25% since 1988. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection has moved 0.21% higher. MRK currently has a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).

In terms of valuation, MRK is currently trading at a Forward P/E ratio of 17.19. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 14.53, which means MRK is trading at a premium to the group.

It is also worth noting that MRK currently has a PEG ratio of 1.73. This metric is used similarly to the famous P/E ratio, but the PEG ratio also takes into account the stock's expected earnings growth rate. MRK's industry had an average PEG ratio of 2.09 as of yesterday's close.

The Large Cap Pharmaceuticals industry is part of the Medical sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 37, putting it in the top 15% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank gauges the strength of our 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.

You can find more information on all of these metrics, and much more, on Zacks.com.


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