ABBV vs. MRK, LLY, PFE, JNJ, BMY, ZTS, NVO, AZN, NVS, and ABT
Should you be buying AbbVie stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of AbbVie include Merck & Co., Inc. (MRK), Eli Lilly and (LLY), Pfizer (PFE), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY), Zoetis (ZTS), Novo Nordisk A/S (NVO), AstraZeneca (AZN), Novartis (NVS), and Abbott Laboratories (ABT). These companies are all part of the "pharmaceutical preparations" industry.
AbbVie vs.
Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) and AbbVie (NYSE:ABBV) are both large-cap medical companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, earnings, community ranking, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, risk, media sentiment, profitability and valuation.
Merck & Co., Inc. currently has a consensus price target of $119.35, suggesting a potential upside of 13.94%. AbbVie has a consensus price target of $161.12, suggesting a potential upside of 2.58%. Given Merck & Co., Inc.'s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Merck & Co., Inc. is more favorable than AbbVie.
AbbVie received 352 more outperform votes than Merck & Co., Inc. when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 73.39% of users gave AbbVie an outperform vote while only 66.81% of users gave Merck & Co., Inc. an outperform vote.
72.9% of Merck & Co., Inc. shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 67.7% of AbbVie shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.3% of Merck & Co., Inc. shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.1% of AbbVie shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.
Merck & Co., Inc. has a beta of 0.34, suggesting that its stock price is 66% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, AbbVie has a beta of 0.62, suggesting that its stock price is 38% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Merck & Co., Inc. has higher revenue and earnings than AbbVie. Merck & Co., Inc. is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than AbbVie, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
In the previous week, AbbVie had 4 more articles in the media than Merck & Co., Inc.. MarketBeat recorded 16 mentions for AbbVie and 12 mentions for Merck & Co., Inc.. Merck & Co., Inc.'s average media sentiment score of 1.03 beat AbbVie's score of 0.29 indicating that Merck & Co., Inc. is being referred to more favorably in the media.
Merck & Co., Inc. pays an annual dividend of $2.92 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.8%. AbbVie pays an annual dividend of $5.92 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.8%. Merck & Co., Inc. pays out 51.1% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. AbbVie pays out 89.6% 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. has raised its dividend for 12 consecutive years and AbbVie has raised its dividend for 51 consecutive years. AbbVie is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.
Merck & Co., Inc. has a net margin of 24.49% compared to AbbVie's net margin of 20.39%. AbbVie's return on equity of 154.52% beat Merck & Co., Inc.'s return on equity.
Summary
Merck & Co., Inc. beats AbbVie on 11 of the 21 factors compared between the two stocks.
New MarketBeat Followers Over Time
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.
Media Sentiment Over Time
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.
