Word: merck
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Even after marketing Rogaine for the past decade, Pharmacia & Upjohn isn?t posting the profits it should be. According to Monday?s Wall Street Journal, income from Rogaine is slumping behind that of Merck?s Propecia - the market?s other, more powerful anti-baldness drug. It seems that in the course of wooing balding men, Pharmacia & Upjohn has tripped over its own advertising claims: The Rogaine web site boasts that the product is ?medically proven to regrow hair,? while following pages back away from such strong language, focusing instead on various caveats to be kept in mind by prospective users...
...that seems to be the smartest play. Inflation worries have driven growth stocks, including Merck and Philip Morris, 20% lower. Some tech stocks (AT&T) are way cheaper too. Internet stocks, if you're so inclined (I'm not), have fallen even more. Yet the Fed has had the right answer for every new-age inflation scare. Why bet against Alan Greenspan now? It could be that the new era deserves a new truism. Forget stumble. Call it three steps and a start...
Sometimes Wall Street gets captivated by a business model, and everybody just goes nuts trying to find companies that fit it. When I got in the business in the early '80s, everybody wanted to find the next Merck, which was a fabulous stock for so many years. Later, people wanted to find the next Microsoft. Then we searched for the next Amgen, and for the past few years we've wanted to find the next Intel. Recently we wanted to find the next WorldCom and the next America Online...
...prices in that kind of environment, which makes them far less vulnerable to the dark side of economic growth--inflation and higher interest rates. If rates, which have also been going up, keep rising, it will let air out of a lot of consumer stocks, like Wal-Mart and Merck. Tech stocks would also suffer. Rising rates are terrible for bonds...
...world economy recovers from the Asian flu. "What started two weeks ago started too fast and was too extreme," says Jeffrey Warantz, strategist at Salomon Smith Barney. "But it's not over." Warantz's research shows that it isn't just tech stocks or large consumer stocks like Merck and Wal-Mart that are rising now. Several weeks ago, 81% of the stocks that he tracks were lagging the gains in Standard & Poor's 500 by 15% or more. Last week the reading was down to 76%. That hardly points to a party to which everyone's been invited. Still...