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The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights Merck, CVS Health, American Tower, QUALCOMM and Analog Devices

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – April 07, 2022 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Merck & Co., Inc. (MRK - Free Report) , CVS Health Corp. (CVS - Free Report) , American Tower Corp. (AMT - Free Report) , QUALCOMM Inc. (QCOM - Free Report) and Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI - Free Report) .

Here are highlights from Wednesday’s Analyst Blog:

Top Analyst Reports for Merck, CVS Health and American Tower

The Zacks Research Daily presents the best research output of our analyst team. Today's Research Daily features new research reports on 16 major stocks, including Merck & Co., Inc., CVS Health Corp., and American Tower Corp.. These research reports have been hand-picked from the roughly 70 reports published by our analyst team today.
 

You can see all of today's research reports here >>>

Shares of Merck have outperformed the Zacks Large Cap Pharmaceuticals industry over the year-to-date period (+10.2% vs. +5.4%) on the back of strong sales from drugs like Keytruda, Lynparza, and Bridion. Animal health and vaccine products remain core growth drivers. Its new oral antiviral pill for COVID-19, molnupiravir, will be a key top-line driver in 2022. Merck boasts a strong cancer pipeline, including Keytruda, which should help drive long-term growth.
 

The separation into two companies should enable Merck to achieve higher profits than the combined company. However, generic competition for several drugs and rising competitive pressure, mainly on the diabetes franchise, will continue to be overhangs on the top line. There are concerns about Merck's ability to grow its non-oncology business ahead of Keytruda loss of exclusivity later in the decade.

(You can read the full research report on Merck here >>>)

Shares of CVS Health have outperformed the Zacks Retail - Pharmacies and Drug Stores industry over the past year (+36.7% vs. +16.1%) as the company continues to come out with stellar results. In the last reported quarter, the company administered more than 8 million COVID-19 tests and more than 20 million COVID-19 vaccines nationwide. It took several steps to support the acceleration of its omnichannel health strategy, including creating new store formats and optimizing its retail footprint to align with evolving customer needs.
 

The Zacks analyst believes that the company is strengthening the consumer experience by expanding digital services and platforms to health services and in-person channels for more than 40 million unique digital customers. However, the rise in operating costs is building pressure on the bottom line.

(You can read the full research report on CVS Health here >>>)

American Tower shares have gained +9.5% over the past year as against the Zacks REIT and Equity Trust - Other industry's gain of +18.3%. The Zacks analyst believes that the extensive and geographically diversified communication real estate portfolio is well-poised to benefit from the increasing capital spending by wireless carriers due to 5G deployments and the future deployment of an additional spectrum. The company is strengthening its portfolio through acquisitions. In December, American Tower announced completing the buyout of CoreSite.
 

In March, American Tower also announced an increase in its quarterly dividend, which augurs well for investors. However, the stiff competition from other tower companies is likely to increase pricing pressure. Moreover, tenant concentration is concerning as consolidations or a reduction in network spending adversely impact the company's top line.
 

(You can read the full research report on American Tower here >>>)

Other noteworthy reports we are featuring today include QUALCOMM Inc., and Analog Devices, Inc..

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Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.

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