Merck's Non-GAAP Q3: A Little Better Than Consensus; GAAP Q3: A Little Worse Than Consensus

Kenilworth announced Q3 2018 results about an hour ago. Generally in-line; and an increased $10 billion stock buyback plan -- with up to $5 billion of that underway on an accelerated basis. The stock is up nicely, in early pre-market trading.

In very large cap companies, with low leverage, and steadily huge cash cows, non-GAAP earnings may be a better forward-looking metric than GAAP ones -- thus Merck shines today. Specifically, Pembrolizumab (Keytruda) continues to impress -- in essentially all sorts of pre-screened cancers, for specific protein expressing levels (the standard fare of immuno-oncology settings, these days). So, all in all, another in a string of now eight solid quarters. On the (rather smallish) product line specific downside, Zostavax sales continue to suffer -- as a new competitor herpes zoster vaccine outperforms it, in a clinical trial, and in the formularies.

Here is the press release. I have another TRO-related hearing this morning, so I'll not listen in on the earnings call.

Importantly, for the retiree crowd out there, I should also mention -- Merck just bumped up its dividend to $0.55 a share, quarterly. Nice. [Onward -- and if court ends early enough -- I'll post a puzzling planetary science one. . . on that perfectly rectangular "2001: A Space Odyssey" style monolithic iceberg, of almost a mile across, now floating free -- near the South Pole.].

नमस्ते