Healthcare Stocks Investor’s Watch List – Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK), Rexahn Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSEMKT:RNN)
Investors looking to grow long term wealth should devote at least some of their portfolio to companies that pay dividends. But how do you choose which ones to add to your portfolio? If you are looking for dividend paying stocks, the most reliable companies to add to your portfolio are those that don’t just pay dividends, but that raise them regularly.
Public companies and their boards typically start issuing regular dividend payments to common shareholders once their companies have reached a significant size and level of stability. Often, young, fast-growing companies prefer not to pay dividends, opting instead to re-invest their retained earnings into their business operations, compounding their growth and thus the book value of their shares over time. However, once a company does decide to start paying a specified amount of money to shareholders in the form of regular cash dividends, its stock usually trades with a little less price volatility in the market.
These companies have long track records of creating long-term value for shareholders.
Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) traded 6,993,659 shares on last trading session with closing price of $64.93.
MRK was trading -2.80% below its 52-week high and 17.84% above its 52-week low. Its last 5-Year EPS growth stands at -7.00%; with earnings growth of 39.30% yoy. The stock stands 2.54% above the average-price of 50 days and 2.29% compared with the SMA 20.
The stock has a 1-year performance up 16.78% and a positive weekly performance at 3.06%. Moreover, the stock is up 4.22% in one month through last close, to $64.93, showing a -1.40% return during the past three months. The company is set at a mean analysts’ recommendation of 2.30.
MRK has been paying dividends since 1935 and has raised their dividend for 5 consecutive years. It has a dividend yield of 2.90% and a 5 year dividend growth rate of 3.07%. Their payout ratio is 119.00%.
Rexahn Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSEMKT:RNN) shares moved to $3.99 after opening the day at $3.91, on Wednesday. The stock floated in a price range of $3.87 to $4.09, with market capitalization of $100.67M. The stock exchanged hands with 171,800 shares lower as compared to its average daily volume of 722.10K shares. If we take a look on its volatility, 6.20 percent was seen in a week and for the month it was 9.75 percent.
The company’s net profit margin stands at N/A whereas its return on equity (ROE) is -209.00%. It has 25.42M of outstanding shares and its shares float measured at 23.80M. The average analysts gave this company a mean recommendation of 1.70.
RNN first paid dividend in None and has increased their dividend for 0 straight years. They have a dividend yield of 0.00% and a 5 year dividend growth rate of 0.00%.