Financial Analysis of Merck

Introduction.
The nature of financial analysis for a given company or industry has changed dramatically in the last few years. Due to both the exponentially increasing dynamic nature of business, as well as the greatly enhanced ability to gather a wealth of information, making decisions on the viability and stability of a company or industry has grown increasingly complex. One method in determining the overall health of a business is the use of financial ratio analysis. Comparing various facets of a company’s financial performance through its ratios, especially when also comparing these same ratios for peer companies as well as the industry as a whole, can be a useful starting point for any investor. In this paper, we attempt to provide cursory information regarding the financial performance for Merck & Co., a major pharmaceutical provider, through a few ratios computed from the company’s recent financial reports. We also compare Merck with two similar companies in the major ...