Erste Group Sticks to Its Hold Rating for Merck & Company (MRK)

In a report released yesterday, Hans Engel from Erste Group maintained a Hold rating on Merck & Company. The company’s shares closed yesterday at $120.87.

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Engel covers the Healthcare sector, focusing on stocks such as Boston Scientific, Johnson & Johnson, and Merck & Company. According to TipRanks, Engel has an average return of 8.5% and a 53.70% success rate on recommended stocks.

In addition to Erste Group, Merck & Company also received a Hold from Bernstein’s Courtney Breen in a report issued on March 30. However, yesterday, Wells Fargo assigned a Buy rating to Merck & Company (NYSE: MRK).

Based on Merck & Company’s latest earnings release for the quarter ending December 31, the company reported a quarterly revenue of $16.4 billion and a net profit of $2.96 billion. In comparison, last year the company earned a revenue of $15.62 billion and had a net profit of $3.74 billion

Based on the recent corporate insider activity of 38 insiders, corporate insider sentiment is negative on the stock. This means that over the past quarter there has been an increase of insiders selling their shares of MRK in relation to earlier this year. Most recently, in February 2026, Chirfi Guindo, the CMO of MRK sold 10,000.00 shares for a total of $1,214,500.00.