Pinnacle Bancorp Inc. Buys 256 Shares of Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK)

Pinnacle Bancorp Inc. raised its stake in Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) by 4.2% in the first quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 6,414 shares of the company’s stock after acquiring an additional 256 shares during the quarter. Pinnacle Bancorp Inc.’s holdings in Merck & Co., Inc. were worth $846,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its position in shares of Merck & Co., Inc. by 3.8% in the fourth quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 85,595,999 shares of the company’s stock valued at $9,331,676,000 after buying an additional 3,153,333 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its position in shares of Merck & Co., Inc. by 14.8% in the fourth quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 36,682,866 shares of the company’s stock valued at $3,966,029,000 after buying an additional 4,731,152 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Merck & Co., Inc. in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $3,108,366,000. Royal Bank of Canada lifted its position in shares of Merck & Co., Inc. by 12.8% in the fourth quarter. Royal Bank of Canada now owns 14,972,074 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,632,255,000 after buying an additional 1,696,151 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Fisher Asset Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Merck & Co., Inc. by 1.7% in the fourth quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 13,566,968 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,479,071,000 after buying an additional 228,578 shares during the last quarter. 76.07% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms have recently issued reports on MRK. Cantor Fitzgerald reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and issued a $155.00 price objective on shares of Merck & Co., Inc. in a research report on Tuesday, June 18th. Berenberg Bank lifted their price target on Merck & Co., Inc. from $140.00 to $143.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, April 8th. Societe Generale cut Merck & Co., Inc. from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating and set a $104.00 price target for the company. in a report on Monday, March 11th. Argus raised Merck & Co., Inc. to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, June 5th. Finally, Truist Financial lifted their price target on Merck & Co., Inc. from $142.00 to $143.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, April 26th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating, eight have issued a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Merck & Co., Inc. currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $133.00.

Merck & Co., Inc. Price Performance

Shares of MRK traded down $6.02 during midday trading on Friday, hitting $123.80. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 49,865,559 shares, compared to its average volume of 8,541,271. Merck & Co., Inc. has a one year low of $99.14 and a one year high of $134.63. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $129.32 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $124.13. The company has a quick ratio of 0.99, a current ratio of 1.25 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.77. The stock has a market capitalization of $313.56 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 137.56, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.54 and a beta of 0.39.

Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 25th. The company reported $2.07 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.94 by $0.13. Merck & Co., Inc. had a return on equity of 14.05% and a net margin of 3.76%. The company had revenue of $15.78 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $15.21 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $1.40 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 8.9% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts expect that Merck & Co., Inc. will post 8.62 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Merck & Co., Inc. Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, July 8th. Stockholders of record on Monday, June 17th will be paid a $0.77 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, June 17th. This represents a $3.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.49%. Merck & Co., Inc.’s payout ratio is 342.22%.

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.