ABBV vs. MRK, JNJ, PFE, BMY, ZTS, MRNA, IQV, IDXX, BNTX, and ILMN
Should you be buying AbbVie stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of AbbVie include Merck & Co., Inc. (MRK), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Pfizer (PFE), Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY), Zoetis (ZTS), Moderna (MRNA), IQVIA (IQV), IDEXX Laboratories (IDXX), BioNTech (BNTX), and Illumina (ILMN). These companies are all part of the "medical" sector.
AbbVie (NYSE:ABBV) and Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) are both large-cap medical companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, analyst recommendations, community ranking, institutional ownership, media sentiment, risk, valuation, earnings and dividends.
In the previous week, AbbVie had 36 more articles in the media than Merck & Co., Inc.. MarketBeat recorded 61 mentions for AbbVie and 25 mentions for Merck & Co., Inc.. Merck & Co., Inc.'s average media sentiment score of 0.70 beat AbbVie's score of 0.54 indicating that Merck & Co., Inc. is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
AbbVie received 334 more outperform votes than Merck & Co., Inc. when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 73.09% of users gave AbbVie an outperform vote while only 66.97% of users gave Merck & Co., Inc. an outperform vote.
AbbVie has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Merck & Co., Inc.. AbbVie is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Merck & Co., Inc., indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
AbbVie has a beta of 0.61, indicating that its share price is 39% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Merck & Co., Inc. has a beta of 0.39, indicating that its share price is 61% less volatile than the S&P 500.
AbbVie pays an annual dividend of $6.20 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.8%. Merck & Co., Inc. pays an annual dividend of $3.08 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.4%. AbbVie pays out 184.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Merck & Co., Inc. pays out 342.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. AbbVie is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.
AbbVie has a net margin of 11.02% compared to Merck & Co., Inc.'s net margin of 3.76%. AbbVie's return on equity of 165.18% beat Merck & Co., Inc.'s return on equity.
AbbVie currently has a consensus price target of $174.31, indicating a potential upside of 6.41%. Merck & Co., Inc. has a consensus price target of $131.33, indicating a potential upside of 3.00%. Given AbbVie's stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe AbbVie is more favorable than Merck & Co., Inc..
70.2% of AbbVie shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 76.1% of Merck & Co., Inc. shares are held by institutional investors. 0.3% of AbbVie shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.1% of Merck & Co., Inc. shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
Summary
AbbVie beats Merck & Co., Inc. on 15 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding ABBV and its top 5 competitors to their watchlist. Each company is represented with a line over a 90 day period.
This chart shows the average media sentiment of NYSE and its competitors over the past 90 days as caculated by MarketBeat. The averaged score is equivalent to the following: Very Negative Sentiment <= -1.5, Negative Sentiment > -1.5 and <= -0.5, Neutral Sentiment > -0.5 and < 0.5, Positive Sentiment >= 0.5 and < 1.5, and Very Positive Sentiment >= 1.5.
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