Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) Releases FY24 Earnings Guidance

Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) updated its FY24 earnings guidance on Thursday. The company provided EPS guidance of $7.72-7.77 for the period, compared to the consensus EPS estimate of $7.75. The company issued revenue guidance of $63.6-64.1 billion, compared to the consensus revenue estimate of $64.14 billion. Merck & Co., Inc. also updated its FY 2024 guidance to 7.720-7.770 EPS.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have weighed in on MRK shares. BMO Capital Markets cut their price target on Merck & Co., Inc. from $150.00 to $136.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Friday. Wolfe Research raised Merck & Co., Inc. to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 31st. Citigroup cut their price target on Merck & Co., Inc. from $140.00 to $130.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, October 25th. Evercore ISI upgraded Merck & Co., Inc. to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 30th. Finally, Morgan Stanley cut their price target on Merck & Co., Inc. from $130.00 to $123.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Friday. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating, ten have assigned a buy rating and four have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $129.93.

Merck & Co., Inc. Stock Performance

Merck & Co., Inc. stock traded down $0.44 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $101.88. 10,180,978 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 9,562,252. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.80, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.22. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $112.29 and its 200-day moving average price is $120.84. The stock has a market capitalization of $258.04 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.36, a P/E/G ratio of 1.46 and a beta of 0.40. Merck & Co., Inc. has a 1 year low of $98.60 and a 1 year high of $134.63.

Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 31st. The company reported $1.57 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.50 by $0.07. Merck & Co., Inc. had a return on equity of 37.32% and a net margin of 19.23%. The company had revenue of $16.66 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $16.47 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $2.13 EPS. Merck & Co., Inc.’s quarterly revenue was up 4.4% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts expect that Merck & Co., Inc. will post 7.76 EPS for the current fiscal year.

About Merck & Co., Inc.

Merck & Co, Inc operates as a healthcare company worldwide. It operates through two segments, Pharmaceutical and Animal Health. The Pharmaceutical segment offers human health pharmaceutical products in the areas of oncology, hospital acute care, immunology, neuroscience, virology, cardiovascular, and diabetes under the Keytruda, Bridion, Adempas, Lagevrio, Belsomra, Simponi, and Januvia brands, as well as vaccine products consisting of preventive pediatric, adolescent, and adult vaccines under the Gardasil/Gardasil 9, ProQuad, M-M-R II, Varivax, RotaTeq, Live Oral, Vaxneuvance, Pneumovax 23, and Vaqta names.