Filed under: Earnings reports, AT and T (T), Merck and Co (MRK)

The earnings season crunch is underway once more, and among companies reporting next week are Merck & Co. (NASDAQ: MRK) and AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T).

In its second quarter report in July, Merck reported earnings per share of 82 cents, beating Wall Street’s expectations by 13.9 percent, up from 73 cents in the same period the previous year. Merck had one-year earnings per share growth of 16.9 percent, which was better than the S&P 500 and the pharmaceutical industry average. For the third quarter, analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial expect Merck to report earnings per share of 69 cents.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial recommend buying Merck: 3 rate it a strong buy, 10 a buy, and 8 a hold. The share price has been creeping back up toward its 52-week high of $55.14 last May, and closed Friday at $53.11.

For more on Vioxx and other pharma news that may affect Merck’s results, check out BloggingStocks’ Merck coverage.

Continue reading Earnings previews: Merck (MRK) and AT&T (T)

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This entry was posted on Sunday, October 21st, 2007 at 11:00 pm and is filed under Stocks Money News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.