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Merck & Co., Inc. (MRK) Stock Price, News & Analysis

Merck & Co., Inc. logo
$147.27 -0.78 (-0.52%)
Closing price 03:59 PM Eastern
Extended Trading
$147.59 +0.32 (+0.21%)
As of 07:59 PM Eastern
Extended trading is trading that happens on electronic markets outside of regular trading hours. This is a fair market value extended hours price provided by Massive. Learn more.

About Merck & Co., Inc. Stock (NYSE:MRK)

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Key Stats

Today's Range
$145.30
▼
$147.62
50-Day Range
$139.61
▼
$152.32
52-Week Range
$90.90
▼
$156.92
Volume
6.41 million shs
Average Volume
10.44 million shs
Market Capitalization
$363.07 billion
P/E Ratio
47.45
Dividend Yield
2.31%
Price Target
$155.74
Consensus Rating
Moderate Buy

Company Overview

Merck & Co., Inc. is a global pharmaceutical company that develops and markets prescription medicines, vaccines, biologic therapies and animal-health products. The company’s research and commercial activities span areas including oncology, infectious diseases, vaccines, cardiovascular disease and immunology. Its products include the cancer medicine Keytruda and the Gardasil vaccine.

Founded in the United States in 1891, Merck & Co. became an independent company in 1917. It is headquartered in Rahway, New Jersey, and operates internationally. Outside the United States and Canada, the company is generally known as MSD.

Merck serves patients, healthcare providers and animal-health customers in markets around the world. Robert M. Davis has served as the company’s chief executive officer since 2021.

AI Generated. May Contain Errors.

Merck & Co., Inc. Stock Analysis - MarketRank™

See Top-Rated MarketRank™ Stocks
88th Percentile Overall Score

MRK MarketRank™: 
4.420783645655 of 5 stars

Merck & Co., Inc. scored higher than 88% of companies evaluated by MarketBeat, and ranked 35th out of 897 stocks in the healthcare sector. Scores are calculated by averaging available category scores, with extra weight given to analysis and valuation.

  • Consensus Rating

    Merck & Co., Inc. has received a consensus rating of Moderate Buy. The company's average rating score is 2.59, and is based on 1 strong buy rating, 16 buy ratings, 11 hold ratings, and 1 sell rating.

  • Upside/Downside

    The consensus price target for Merck & Co., Inc. is close to its current price, suggesting limited near-term upside or downside.

  • Amount of Analyst Coverage

    Merck & Co., Inc. has been the subject of 23 research reports in the past 90 days, demonstrating strong analyst interest in this stock.

  • Read more about Merck & Co., Inc.'s stock forecast and price target.
  • Earnings Growth

    Earnings for Merck & Co., Inc. are expected to grow by 221.99% in the coming year, from $2.82 to $9.08 per share.

  • Price to Earnings Ratio vs. the Market

    The P/E ratio of Merck & Co., Inc. is 47.45, which means that it is trading at a more expensive P/E ratio than the market average P/E ratio of about 25.24.

  • Price to Earnings Ratio vs. Sector

    The P/E ratio of Merck & Co., Inc. is 47.45, which means that it is trading at a more expensive P/E ratio than the Healthcare sector average P/E ratio of about 34.15.

  • Price to Earnings Growth Ratio

    Merck & Co., Inc. has a PEG Ratio of 6.79. PEG Ratios above 1 indicate that a company could be overvalued.

  • Price to Book Value per Share Ratio

    Merck & Co., Inc. has a P/B Ratio of 8.08. P/B Ratios above 3 indicate that a company could be overvalued with respect to its assets and liabilities.

  • Percentage of Shares Shorted

    1.08% of the float of Merck & Co., Inc. has been sold short.
  • Short Interest Ratio / Days to Cover

    Merck & Co., Inc. has a short interest ratio ("days to cover") of 2.36, which is generally considered an acceptable ratio of short interest to trading volume.
  • Change versus previous month

    Short interest in Merck & Co., Inc. has recently decreased by 0.82%, indicating that investor sentiment is improving.
  • Dividend Yield

    Merck & Co., Inc. pays a meaningful dividend of 2.30%, higher than the bottom 25% of all stocks that pay dividends.

  • Dividend Growth

    Merck & Co., Inc. has been increasing its dividend for 14 years.

  • Dividend Coverage

    The dividend payout ratio of Merck & Co., Inc. is 350.52%. Payout ratios above 75% are not desirable because they may not be sustainable.

  • Dividend Sustainability

    Based on earnings estimates, Merck & Co., Inc. will have a dividend payout ratio of 37.44% next year. This indicates that Merck & Co., Inc. will be able to sustain or increase its dividend.

  • Read more about Merck & Co., Inc.'s dividend.
  • News Sentiment

    Merck & Co., Inc. has a news sentiment score of 0.92. This score is calculated as an average of sentiment of articles about the company over the last seven days and ranges from 2 (good news) to -2 (bad news). This is a higher news sentiment than the 0.57 average news sentiment score of Healthcare companies.
  • News Coverage This Week

    MarketBeat has tracked 42 news articles for Merck & Co., Inc. this week, compared to 10 articles on an average week.
  • Search Interest

    54 people have searched for MRK on MarketBeat in the last 30 days. This is an increase of 20% compared to the previous 30 days.
  • MarketBeat Follows

    43 people have added Merck & Co., Inc. to their MarketBeat watchlist in the last 30 days. This is an increase of 438% compared to the previous 30 days.
  • Insider Buying vs. Insider Selling

    In the past three months, Merck & Co., Inc. insiders have sold more of their company's stock than they have bought. Specifically, they have bought $0.00 in company stock and sold $15,300,182.00 in company stock.

  • Percentage Held by Insiders

    0.17% of the stock of Merck & Co., Inc. is held by insiders.

  • Percentage Held by Institutions

    76.07% of the stock of Merck & Co., Inc. is held by institutions. High institutional ownership can be a signal of strong market trust in this company.

  • Read more about Merck & Co., Inc.'s insider trading history.
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MRK Stock News Headlines

URGENT: If you own a home, please review the map below.
More than 1,300 red dots are scattered across the country, and 2,800 more are already on the way. Jim Rickards urges homeowners to check the map and see whether one is near them. Families in Georgia have been forced to sell, entire Ohio neighborhoods are being torn down, and nearly 50,000 Lake Tahoe residents face losing power. Rickards advised the Pentagon and the U.S. intelligence community for decades. He says one man outside Washington can stop it.tc pixel
Up 42% since January: Why Merck is defeating the patent cliff
The AI Debt Bill Is Coming Due, But Biotech Has Revenue to Show for the Boom
The AI Debt Bill Is Coming Due, But Biotech Has Revenue to Show for the Boom (MRK)
AI infrastructure is being funded with debt and stock sales while biotech companies applying AI are booking revenue, led by Tempus AI, Recursion and iShares Biotechnology...
Vaccine vial and syringe on a lab surface with DNA strands and virus particle illustrations in the background.
Merck and Moderna's Cancer Vaccine Worked—Who Gets Paid? (MRK)
Merck and Moderna's melanoma vaccine cut recurrence risk 42% in a Phase 3 trial, but results fell short of hopes, sending Moderna shares down sharply while Merck stock barely moved.
Vaccine vial and syringe on a lab surface with DNA strands and virus particle illustrations in the background.
Merck and Moderna's Cancer Vaccine Worked—Who Gets Paid? (MRK)
Merck and Moderna's melanoma vaccine cut recurrence risk 42% in a Phase 3 trial, but results fell short of hopes, sending Moderna shares down sharply while Merck stock barely moved.
4 Beaten-Down Stocks With Catalysts Ahead, Including 1 Down More Than 50%
Buy the Dip: 4 Stocks the Market Marked Down Too Far Ahead of Big Catalysts (MRK)
MercadoLibre, Novo Nordisk, Tyler Technologies and Summit Therapeutics trade below recent highs, yet each has earnings or catalysts that could shift sentiment.
See More Headlines

MRK Stock Analysis - Frequently Asked Questions

Merck & Co., Inc.'s stock was trading at $105.20 at the beginning of 2026. Since then, MRK stock has increased by 40.0% and is now trading at $147.2740.

Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, October, 29th. The company reported $2.49 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $2.09 by $0.40. Merck & Co., Inc.'s revenue was up 4.7% on a year-over-year basis.
Read the conference call transcript
.

Merck & Co., Inc.'s board authorized a stock buyback program on Tuesday, January 28th 2025, which authorizes the company to repurchase $10 billion in shares, according to EventVestor. This means that the company could reacquire up to 4.1% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are typically a sign that the company's management believes its shares are undervalued.

Merck & Co., Inc.'s top institutional investors include Fisher Asset Management LLC (1.69%), Voya Investment Management LLC (0.25%), Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. (0.24%) and HighTower Advisors LLC (0.14%). Insiders that own company stock include Robert M Davis, Richard R Deluca, Dean Y Li, Caroline Litchfield, Jennifer Zachary, Chirfi Guindo, David Michael Williams, Steven Mizell, Johannes Jacobus Oosthuizen, Joseph Romanelli, David R Maraldo, Dalton E Smart III, Cristal N Downing and Inge G Thulin.
View institutional ownership trends
.

Shares of MRK stock can be purchased through any online brokerage account. Popular online brokerages with access to the U.S. stock market include Charles Schwab, E*TRADE, Fidelity, and Vanguard Brokerage Services.

Based on aggregate information from My MarketBeat watchlists, some other companies that Merck & Co., Inc. investors own include Pfizer (PFE), NVIDIA (NVDA), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), AbbVie (ABBV), Verizon Communications (VZ), Chevron (CVX) and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM).

Company Calendar

Record date for 10/7 Dividend
9/15/2026
Ex-Dividend for 10/7 Dividend
9/15/2026
Dividend Payable
10/07/2026
Last Earnings
10/29/2026
Today
11/11/2026
Fiscal Year End
12/31/2026

Industry, Sector and Symbol

Stock Exchange
NYSE
Industry
Pharmaceuticals
Sub-Industry
Pharmaceuticals
Current Symbol
NYSE:MRK
CIK
310158
Employees
75,000
Year Founded
1891

Price Target and Rating

High Price Target
$180.00
Low Price Target
$105.00
Potential Upside/Downside
+5.7%
Consensus Rating
Moderate Buy
Rating Score (0-4)
2.59
Research Coverage
29 Analysts

Profitability

EPS (Trailing Twelve Months)
$0.97
Trailing P/E Ratio
47.45
Forward P/E Ratio
16.22
P/E Growth
6.79
Net Income
$18.25 billion
Net Margins
3.64%
Pretax Margin
7.07%
Return on Equity
16.73%
Return on Assets
5.88%

Debt

Debt-to-Equity Ratio
1.11
Current Ratio
1.35
Quick Ratio
1.14

Sales & Book Value

Annual Sales
$65.01 billion
Price / Sales
5.58
Cash Flow
$11.36 per share
Price / Cash Flow
12.96
Book Value
$18.23 per share
Price / Book
8.08

Miscellaneous

Outstanding Shares
2,465,250,000
Free Float
2,461,055,000
Market Cap
$363.07 billion
Optionable
Optionable
Beta
0.13

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This page (NYSE:MRK) was last updated on 11/11/2026 by MarketBeat.com Staff.
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