PREVIEW: Merck Q2 revenue seen rising, deal to weigh on bottom line
RPT-BUZZ-PREVIEW: Merck Q2 revenue seen rising, deal to weigh on bottom line Repeats item first published on Monday with no changes to text
** Shares in pharma co Merck & Co MRK.N down 1.9% in last session ahead of quarterly report due out before market open on Tuesday
** Wall Street expects MRK, provider of blockbuster immunotherapy cancer treatment Keytruda, to report Q2 adj. loss/shr of $0.27 vs profit/shr of $2.19 in year-ago quarter on rev of $16.36 bln, which would be up ~3.5% from $15.81 bln a year ago - LSEG data
** Results expected to include charge of about $2.35/shr from MRK's completion of its purchase of biotech firm Terns Pharma, announced in March as a $6.7 billion deal, as co looks to bolster its cancer pipeline ahead of patent loss for Keytruda later this decade.
** In last eight quarters, MRK's revenue beat the Street seven times, while EPS beat every time
** Stock last traded at $127.76 vs median PT of $137, according to data compiled by LSEG, which shows 32 analyst ratings: eight 'strong buy,' 14 'buy,' 10 'hold'
** YTD shares up ~21% vs ~11% gain for Dow industrials .DJI and ~5% gain for S&P 500 healthcare index .SPXHC
** MRK options imply a 4.9% swing for the shares, in either direction by Friday, according to Trade Alert data; the stock has logged avg. move of 3.6% on the day of results over the last eight qtrs
(Reporting by Sinead Carew, Saqib Iqbal Ahmed)