FRANKFURT (dpa-AFX) - Merck KGaA shares took a run at a chart hurdle on Tuesday evening after the end of Xetra main trading. The price climbed 1.8 percent to €118.90 on the Tradegate trading platform compared to the Xetra closing price, after Peter Verdult of French investment bank Exane BNP Paribas raised the price target from €116 to €145 and upgraded the stock by two notches from "underweight" to "overweight" in view of its potential.
With the rise in price, the shares are now struggling with the exponential 200-day line. This indicator of the longer-term trend is currently attempting to bottom out, as is the share price of the Darmstadt-based pharmaceutical and technology group. However, despite the current recovery, a price decline of around 15 percent would still be on the agenda in 2025.
The shares had recently benefited from the third-quarter financial results published in November. The DAX-listed company had earned a surprising amount of money in the wake of a recovery in its laboratory division. It is currently recovering from the post-corona slump, which, along with a downturn in large parts of the semiconductor markets, was one of the reasons for the weak share price since the end of 2021 – at that time, the shares had peaked at just over €230.
Business related to products for drug production has recently picked up strongly, and in the pharmaceuticals division, the recent acquisition of US cancer specialist Springworks Therapeutics, among other things, provided tailwinds. In addition, the current boom in artificial intelligence is supporting Merck's semiconductor materials business. /mis/tih/nas
