Stock market today: S&P 500 drops for fifth day as focus shifts to Powell’s speech
Investing.com - Barclays (LON:BARC) downgraded Merck (NSE:PROR) KGaA (OTC:MKGAF) from Overweight to Equalweight on Tuesday, while reducing its price target to EUR120.00 from EUR150.00 following disappointing second-quarter results.
The German company’s Electronics (EL) business faced "very challenging" market conditions and one-off issues, despite strong performance in its Process Solutions (PS) segment, which maintained a "comfortably" above 1x book-to-bill ratio.
Merck KGaA has again lowered its fiscal year 2025 guidance, citing deteriorating Electronics outlook, the divestment of Surface Solutions, and increased foreign exchange headwinds, partially offset by improved margin expectations in Life Science (LS) and Healthcare (HC) segments.
Barclays reduced its sales forecast by 2% across fiscal years 2025-2027 and cut EBITDA pre estimates by 2-3% to reflect recent Healthcare and Electronics portfolio changes and shifting margin mix between segments.
The research firm now forecasts EUR21.1 billion in FY25 sales versus company guidance of EUR20.5-21.7 billion, and EUR6.0 billion in EBITDA pre compared to guidance of EUR5.9-6.3 billion, positioning Barclays’ estimates approximately 1% below Bloomberg consensus for both metrics.
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