View of the entrance to the Mission Bay office of pharmaceutical company Merck, including the Merck … [+] logo and a green wall featuring local plants, 2016. (Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images).
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Merck’s stock(NYSE: MRK) lost more than 28% – dropping from $92 at the beginning of the year to $66 in late March – then jumped 21% to around $80 now. That means it has partially recovered to the levels where it started the year. That said, MRK stock has underperformed the broader markets, with the S&P 500 which fell 31% followed by a 53% recovery.
Why? Merck is not immune to the current crisis. The company stated that it expects the Covid-related business disruptions to hurt its sales in the near term. Merck now expects revenues of $47.6 billion to $48.6 billion for the full year 2020, assuming $2.35 billion of Covid headwind for the
California’s already tough privacy law is about to get a lot stronger as voters are expected to approve a ballot initiative expanding much of what the law covers this week. If approved, Proposition 24 would expand California’s privacy law to cover more sensitive data sets and establish a new state agency in charge of enforcing these rules for consumers. The result will be a higher standard for privacy in California and a powerful new state agency to take on tech companies.
As of press time, Proposition 24 is leading with 56 percent of the vote, as reported by The Sacramento Bee. Only about 65 percent of the vote has been tallied, but poll watchers expect the measure to clear based on the early returns.
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