The unofficial closing bells put the DJIA up more than 33 points to 12,878.43 (0.26%), the NASDAQ rose more than 2 points (0.07%) to 2,904.08, and the S&P 500 rose 0.20% or nearly 3 points to 1,347.05.

There were several analyst upgrades and downgrades today, including Sirius XM Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) started as ‘underweight’ at Barclays; IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM) started as ‘buy’ with a $230 target price at Sterne Agee (our coverage here); AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN) cut to ‘underperform’ at BofA/ML; Urban Outfitters Inc. (NASDAQ: URBN) cut to ‘sell’ at Brean Murray; and Zoltek Cos. Inc. (NASDAQ: ZOLT) cut to ‘underperform’ at Needham (our coverage here).

Earnings reports since markets closed last night have led to some price changes as of the last half hour of trading today: Yum! Brands Inc. (NYSE: YUM) is up 2.67% at $64.88 after posting a new 52-week high of $65.79 earlier today; ArcelorMittal AS (NYSE: MT) is up 3.5% at $22.19; BP plc (NYSE: BP) is down -0.41% at $46.68; Coca-Cola Co. (NYSE: KO) is up 1% at $68.71 (our coverage here); Emerson Electric Co. (NYSE: EMR) is down -2.6% at $51.99; and Louisiana-Pacific Corp. (NYSE: LPX) is down -6.5% at $8.31 (our coverage here).

Our preview of tomorrow’s earnings releases is here.

Other standouts from today include the following stocks:

The McClatchy Co. (NYSE: MNI) is up 21% at $2.71. The newspaper company reported stronger-than-expected earnings today on cost-cutting.

Coinstar Inc. (NASDAQ: CSTR) is up 16.5% at $58.90 after posting a new 52-week high of $60.81 earlier today. The video rental company will join with Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) to offer a streaming video service to compete with Netflix Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX) and others. More coverage here and here.

Standard Pacific Corp. (NYSE: SPF) is up 15.8% at $4.69 after posting a new 52-week high of $4.85 earlier today. The homebuilder posted good earnings today and reported that orders are up 8% in January.

Nevsun Resources Ltd. (AMEX: NSU) is down more than -30% at $4.43. The junior gold miner issued a preliminary 2012 outlook that included a sharp drop in production and in its reserves estimates.

BioSante Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: BPAX) is down more than -18% at $0.86. The company is the target of a new lawsuit charging it with misrepresentation. We have more coverage of BioSante here.

Stay tuned for Wednesday. San Francisco Federal Reserve president John Williams is giving a speech. We have noted the following events on the schedule (all times Eastern):

• 7:00 a.m. – Mortgage Bankers Association purchase applications report
• 10:30 a.m. – EIA weekly petroleum status report
• 1:00 p.m. – Treasury 10-year note auction

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AON Corporation (NYSE: AON) Cut to Neutral at Citigroup.
AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN) Cut to Underperform at BofA/ML.
Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) Reiterated Outperform with $26 target at Credit Suisse.
Digital Realty (NYSE: DLR) Started as Sell at Cantor Fitzgerald.
Digital River Inc. (NASDAQ: DRIV) Cut to Hold at Argus.
Henry Schein, Inc. (NASDAQ: HSIC) Cut to Neutral at Credit Suisse.
International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE: IBM) Started as Buy with $230 target at Stern Agee.  (LINK: FULL DETAILS)
Pep Boys-Manny, Moe & Jack Inc. (NYSE: PBY) Cut to Hold at Argus.
Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) named Bear of the Day at Zacks.
Senior Housing Properties Trust (NYSE: SNH) Cut to Hold at Stifel Nicolaus.
Seaspan Corporation (NYSE: SSW) Cut to Market Perform at Wells Fargo.
Sirius Satellite Radio, Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) Started as Underweight at Barclays.
Sohu.com Inc. (NASDAQ: SOHU) downgraded to Hold at RBS and Cut to Neutral at Susquehanna.
Sunoco Logistics, LP (NYSE: SXL) named as Bull of the Day at Zacks.
Thor Industries, Inc. (NYSE: THO) named Value stock of the day at Zacks.
Urban Outfitters Inc. (NASDAQ: URBN) Cut to Sell at Brean Murray.
Zoltek Companies, Inc. (NASDAQ: ZOLT) Cut to Underperform at Needham (LINK: FULL SUMMARY).

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JON C. OGG

Sony Slashes Forecast

Sony’s (NYSE: SNE) new CEO-elect, Kazuo Hirai, will not get a honeymoon at all. The Japanese company said it expects an annual loss of $2.8 billion. Hirai said he will address Sony’s problems immediately, which he has to say. Any other reaction would be less than responsible, at least in the eyes of shareholders. Hirai sounds quite a bit like Howard Stringer, the lame duck CEO, did when he took the job. Sony, he said, has become too inward looking. Its engineering culture was isolated from the world of electronic product consumption. Stringer said he would tear the curtains away so that Sony employees could see the world of the consumers who bought its products and those of its competitor’s. The process did not work. Now Hirai can repeat it.

Deutsche Bank’s Q4 Loss

Deutsche Bank (NYSE: DB) is the largest bank in Europe, as well as one of the largest in the world. It is also the flagship financial firm of the strongest economy in Europe. Those things have not insulated it from the region’s deepening problems. Deutsche Bank announced that it lost $463 million in the final quarter of 2011. It blamed a collapse in investment banking brought on by the extreme caution of businesses in the region. These results are the swan song for Europe’s most powerful banker, Josef Ackermann. What it took him a decade to create could be gone in a short year. It may be he is lucky to be leaving when he is.

AstraZeneca Cuts 7,000

Drug maker AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN) will lay off 7,000 people. At least the move is not part of the fallout from Europe’s problems. The reasons are more mundane. Like most major pharma firms, AstraZeneca’s major products are quickly losing their patent protection. The R&D arm of the company cannot replace them with new blockbuster treatments fast enough. Smaller and nimbler biotech firms have become the sector’s innovators. The size of these firms makes it possible for them to prosper on just one or two successes. That has prompted companies like AstraZeneca to buy these smaller companies. But the M&A process must be too slow to refill AstraZeneca’s pipeline, as the layoffs show.

Douglas A. McIntyre

The Seattle-based biotech announced sequential revenue growth for the fourth quarter ended December 31 of approximately 25% to $82 million, above the consensus estimate of $72 million. For full-year 2011, Dendreon said sales of Provenge (sipuleucel-T) would total approximately $228 million. Gold credited an improved Provenge reimbursement landscape and ongoing physician education initiatives for the stronger results.

Investors were initially bullish on the growth prospects  of the vaccine, which was approved in April 2010 for the treatment of advanced (hormone-refractory) prostate cancer. And with good reason: The first therapy in the U.S. designed to induce the body’s own immune system to attack prostatic tumor cells, Provenge’s side-effects are less toxic than traditional chemo-based treatments for advanced prostate cancer, such as Sanofi’s (NYSE: SNY) taxotere (docetaxel). And, unlike the plethora of drugs in the treatment paradigm for metastatic, castrate-resistant (hormone-refractory) prostate cancer, such as AstraZeneca’s (NYSE: AZN) Zoladex or Abbott’s (NYSE: ABT) wildly popular Lupron injection, Provenge does not focus on reducing testosterone levels, the male hormone fueling growth of tumor cells.

From a high of $42 a share in April 2011, the stock price tumbled more than 80% last fall after the company withdrew prior guidance of $400 million in annual sales, the result of prolonged delays in federal and private insurance reimbursements.

“It’s not what we don’t know that hurts us, it’s what we know for certain that just ain’t so.” ~ American author and humorist Mark Twain

Analysts attribute the dramatic spike in Dendreon’s stock price to the positive shift in insurance coverage — including a reduction in average time to payment of less than 30 days for providers. “We believe that this progress may help clear some of the fog surrounding the Provenge sales trajectory,” said Joseph Pantginis, Roth Capital Partners.

An oft-repeated tragicomedy that befalls investors is how the unabashed certitudes of Wall St. dissemblers result in trading losses for those of us who pile into stocks after the “good” news is out. Not to pick on Pantginis exclusively, but improving trends in reimbursement for Provenge is old news: In a 10Q Detective column posted last November, I noted that CEO Gold had previously mentioned that average (insurance) reimbursement times had fallen from “90 days down to 30 days.”

Though I do not doubt prescription uptake of Provenge by urologists and oncologists is trending higher (read my bullish article, posted on November 17, 2011: Dendreon Buyout, How Imminent?), more likely, the breathtaking climb in Dendreon’s share price was unintentionally engineered by short-sellers closing out open positions. According to NASDAQ, short interest in Dendreon common stock was 31.3 million (as of December 15), about 21% of the stock’s float.

Further exacerbating a combustible trading environment, days to cover had jumped to seven, from 3.9 the month prior.

Need more convincing evidence that Dendreon’s stock price overreacted to acknowledged “modest” growth expectations? On Thursday, January 5, approximately 44.9 million shares changed hands, a 700% increase over its 65-day average volume.

Looking to go long Dendreon stock? Free advice — stand clear, at least for now.

David Phillips

Related Posts:

Dendreon – Not Running Out of Cash

Dendreon Buyout, How Imminent?

AstraZeneca PLC (NYSE: AZN) Cut to Underweight at JPMorgan.
BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE: BLK) Cut to Neutral at Stern Agee.
Broadcom Corp. (NASDAQ: BRCM) Reiterated Buy with $46 price target at Argus.
Constellation Energy Group, Inc. (NYSE: CEG) Cut to Neutral at Citigroup.
Consolidated Edison Inc. (NYSE: ED) Cut to Neutral at Citigroup.
eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) Reiterated Buy with $40 price target at Argus.
LM Ericsson Telephone Co. (NASDAQ: ERIC) Cut to Neutral at Credit Suisse.
Exelon Corporation (NYSE: EXC) Cut to Neutral at Citigroup.
Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) downgraded to Hold at Benchmark; Raised targets at boutique firm Global Equities Research.
Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX) Maintained Underperform and cut estimates at Needham.
Nokia Corporation (NYSE: NOK) Raised to Outperform at Credit Suisse (full summary).
Pacific Sunwear of California Inc. (NASDAQ: PSUN) Raised to Buy at Janney Capital Markets.
ReneSola Ltd. (NYSE: SOL) named as the Bear of the Day at Zacks Investment Research.
SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) Raised to Neutral at BNP Paribas.
Sanofi (NYSE: SNY) Cut to Neutral at JPMorgan.
Trinity Industries, Inc. (NYSE: TRN) named as value stock of the day at Zacks.
United Parcel Service, Inc. (NYSE: UPS) Cut to Neutral at HSBC.
VIVUS Inc. (NASDAQ: VVUS) Started as Perform at Rodman & Renshaw.
VMware Inc. (NYSE: VWM) Started as Buy at Stern Agee.

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Pacific Sunwear of California (NASDAQ: PSUN) said it would close 200 stores. The company faces competition for the sale of glasses and other personal wear items. Not all retailers will benefit from improvements in sales this holiday season. The news follows a recent announcement that the Gap (NYSE: GPS) will close 200 of its own outlets. For all the retailers who boast that the 2011 holiday season will be strong, several have found otherwise.

AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN) could not be in a business more different from Pacific Sunwear. But the large pharmaceutical company finds itself in a period of falling sales. It will cut 1,150 jobs in the U.S. Many will be sales staff, which is a sure sign that revenue growth has become troubled. Either the economy has hurt the company or its products have failed in the market. It hardly matters to those who will lose jobs.

On the same day as the other two job actions, McGraw-Hill (NYSE: MHP) announced it would cut 550 jobs in its education publishing division. Sales of textbooks must have dropped.

The three actions, all in one day, are not directly related to one another. It is open to speculation if they would have happened if the economy was in a substantial recovery. The job cuts do, however, remind those who believe that the employment market has recovered that there are still pockets of trouble large enough to cost thousands of jobs.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Large pharmaceutical companies like Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE), AstraZeneca plc (NYSE: AZN), Bristol Meyers Squibb Co. (NYSE: BMY), and Merck & Co. Inc. (NYSE: MRK) are also spending less in developing new drugs and there have been calls within the industry to share more information, especially on drugs that have failed trials. High development costs join pricing pressure in Europe, a lack of urgency on this year’s flu season, lower rates of prescription writing, and more competition from generics to weigh on drug company revenue and profits.

We’ve looked at the price targets for J&J, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Bristol Meyers, and Merck with an eye toward trying to detect value opportunities. All data from Yahoo! Finance, with current prices gathered about noon today.

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) has a median price target of $72.00 from 13 brokers. The current price is $63.03, for a potential upside of $8.97, or 14.2%. The company pays a dividend yield of 3.6% and its forward P/E is 12.02. J&J’s share price has fallen about -2% since our last look at these companies. The company’s list of missteps and mishaps in the past year or so is long enough to have mortally wounded just about any other company. The company has been found liable for some $750 million in health care fraud claims, it has paid a $70 million fee to settle a foreign bribery case, the factory that makes many of its popular over-the-counter brands has been shut down, and it is being sued for selling a faulty hip-replacement device. Despite all that, J&J continues to make a profit, and its median target price rose from its October level of $70.

Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) has a median price target of $23.00 from 17 brokers. The current share price is $19.02, for a potential upside of $3.98, or 21%. The company pays a dividend yield of 4.1% and its forward P/E is 8.24. Pfizer announced today that it would pay $60 million in the same foreign bribery investigation that cost J&J $70 million last Spring. The company recently got some good news when UnitedHealth Group Inc. (NYSE: UNH) announced that it would charge a lower co-payment for the Pfizer’s Lipitor than it would for generic equivalents. Pfizer lost patent protection on the drug this month, jeopardizing $10.7 billion in revenue from sales of Lipitor. Trying to buy market share by lowering the price of Lipitor might make up some of the loss, but it’s hard to see all the revenue being replaced this way.

AstraZeneca plc (NYSE: AZN) has a median price target of $52.25 from just 4 brokers. The current share price is $44.05, for a potential upside of $8.20, or 18.6%. The company pays a dividend yield of 3.8% and its forward P/E is 7.03. The company’s Crestor drug competes with Pfizer’s Lipitor, but has patent protection until 2016. Crestor also recently bested Lipitor in a trial at the Cleveland Clinic. While Crestor did better at lowering cholesterol levels, the two drugs performed equally on reducing atherosclerosis and clinical events like strokes and heart attacks. Whether that will be enough to justify the hefty cost premium for Crestor over Lipitor and its generics remains to be seen. Adding to the company’s challenges, an anti-depressant jointly developed by AstraZeneca and Targacept also recently failed a late-stage trial.

Bristol Meyers Squibb Co. (NYSE: BMY) has a median price target of $33.50 from 18 brokers. The current share price is $30.29, for a potential upside of $3.21, or 10.6%. The company pays a dividend yield of 4.3% and its forward P/E ratio is 15.08. A diabetes drug jointly developed by Bristol Meyers and AstraZeneca was denied US FDA approval due to increased cancer risk among those involved in the trial. If the FDA doesn’t reverse itself, the fallout from this decision would also likely hit Pfizer, J&J, and other companies working on a similar diabetes drug. The global market for diabetes treatment will nearly triple, to $114.3 billion in the next five years, so there is a lot at stake here.

Merck & Co. Inc. (NYSE: MRK) has a median price target of $40.25 from 16 brokers. The current share price is $34.11, for a potential upside of $6.14, or 18%. The company pays a dividend yield of 4.3% and its forward P/E is 8.91. Merck received 5 approvals for new drugs in 2011, has hopes for 8 further approvals in 2012 and 2013, and claims to have 19 more in late-stage testing. The company already has the best-selling diabetes drug and it continues to work on more diabetes combination drugs as well. The company is still hampered by claims against it for its Vioxx painkiller, which was found to cause heart attacks.

Big pharma faces some big issues, but chief among those is reining in the development costs for news drugs. The company that appears to have done the best job of that, to date, is Merck. Provided that Merck can steer its new drugs through the approvals process, then those efforts at cost control could pay off nicely for investors.

Paul Ausick

The unofficial closing bells put the DJIA up more than 101 points to 12,170.18 (0.84%), the NASDAQ rose more than 32 points (1.2%) to 2,727.49, and the S&P 500 rose 1.17% or more than 14 points to 1,275.93.

There were several analyst upgrades and downgrades today, including Aixtron SE (NASDAQ: AIXG), which we noted in our story on LED lighting this morning and was raised to ‘equal weight’ at Morgan Stanley. Other changes included AstraZeneca PLC (NYSE: AZN) cut to ‘underweight’ at Morgan Stanley; Honeywell International (NYSE: HON) raised to ‘buy’ at Citigroup; Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM) reiterated as ‘buy’ and target price raised to $95 at Argus; Plains All-America Pipeline L.P. (NYSE: PAA) raised to ‘buy’ at Wells Fargo; and Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) cut to ‘neutral’ at BofA/ML.

Here are today’s big post-earnings news reactions with prices during the last half-hour of trading: Fuel Tech, Inc. (NASDAQ: FTEK) is up about 22%, at $6.63; Iridium Communications Inc. (NASDAQ: IRDM) is up nearly 16%, at $7.34; Exide Technologies (NASDAQ: XIDE) is down more than -32%, at $3.04, after posting a new 52-week low of $2.98 earlier today; WMS Industries Inc. (NYSE: WMS) is down nearly -17%, at $18.25; James River Coal Corp. (NASDAQ: JRCC) is down nearly -9%, at $9.45; and Procera Networks, Inc. (AMEX: PKT) is up nearly 21%, at $14.31, after posting a new 52-week high earlier today of $14.38.

Several other standouts from today are as follows…

Republic Airways Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: RJET)  is up more than 57%, at $4.24. The company said that it is looking at selling or spinning off its Frontier Airlines unit.

Opexa Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: OPXA) is up nearly 33%, to $1.37. The company announced that its drug treatment for multiple sclerosis has received the Fast Track designation from the FDA.

Dynegy Inc. (NYSE: DYN) is up more than 28%, at $3.79. The utility company has said that several of its units have filed for bankruptcy. We covered the unusual bankruptcy boost in more detail earlier today.

Targacept, Inc. (NASDAQ: TRGT) is down nearly -59%, at $7.75, a new 52-week low. The company announced this morning that its anti-depressant drug failed a recent first phase trial.

McCormick & Schmick’s Seafood Restaurants Inc. (NASDAQ: MSSR) is up more than 27%, at $8.65. The company has accepted a buyout offer of $8.75/share in cash from Landry’s Inc.

Solazyme, Inc. (NASDAQ: SZYM) is up more than 17%, at $10.98. The company has signed tentative contracts for 90% of its feedstock through 2015. We covered potential upside in the biofuel sector earlier this week.

Stay tuned for Wednesday. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke is giving a speech in the morning and Federal Reserve governor Daniel Tarullo gives a speech in the afternoon. We have noted the following events (all times Eastern):

• 7:00 a.m. – Mortgage Bankers Association purchase applications
• 9:30 a.m. – Wholesale trade report
• 10:30 p.m. – EIA weekly petroleum status report
• 1:00 p.m. – US Treasury 10-year note auction

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Aixtron SE (NASDAQ: AIXG) Raised to Equalweight at Morgan Stanley.
Alcatel-Lucent SA (NYSE: ALU) Cut to Neutral at BofA/ML.
AstraZeneca PLC (NYSE: AZN) Cut to Underweight at Morgan Stanley.
Corrections Corporation of America (NYSE:CXW) named as Value stock of the day at Zacks.
Emerson Electric Co. (NYSE: EMR) Raised to Buy at Citigroup.
GlaxoSmithKline plc (NYSE: GSK) Raised to Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley.
Honeywell International (NYSE: HON) Raised to Buy at Citigroup.
Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM) Reiterated Buy and raised target to $95 at Argus.
Kirby Corporation (NYSE: KEX) Started as Outperform at Credit Suisse.
Microchip Technology (NASDAQ: MCHP) named as Bear of the Day at Zacks.
OmniVision Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: OVTI) Cut to Perform at Oppenheimer.
Plains All American Pipeline, L.P. (NYSE: PAA) Raised to Outperform at Wells Fargo.
Rackspace Hosting, Inc. (NYSE: RAX) Raised to Buy at Kaufman Bros.
St. Jude Medical (NYSE: STJ) Raised to Outperform at Credit Suisse.
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries (NASDAQ: TEVA) Reinstated as Outperform at Credit Suisse.
Trimble Navigation Limited (NASDAQ: TRMB) Started as Buy at Janney.
Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (NASDAQ: VRTX) Cut to Neutral at R. W. Baird.
Whole Foods Market Inc. (NYSE: WFM) named Bull of the Day at Zacks.

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We’ve taken a look implied gains at five large pharmaceutical makers based on current share price targets: Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE), AstraZeneca plc (NYSE: AZN), Bristol Meyers Squibb Co. (NYSE: BMY), and Merck & Co. Inc. (NYSE: MRK). All data from Yahoo! Finance.

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) has a mean share price target of $70.00 from 13 brokers. In early afternoon trading today, the stock changed hands at $64.63, for an implied gain of $5.37, or 7.7%. J&J’s forward P/E is 12.2, and the company’s dividend yield is 3.5%. The stock’s 52-week trading range is $57.50-$68.05, and it’s trading today at about 12% above its 52-week low and 5% below its 52-week high. J&J made our list of one of 15 recession-proof companies and is one of the S&P Dividend Aristocrats, an index of 42 companies that have increased their dividends in each of the last 25 years. Even product recalls and bumbling management can’t seem to derail this stock.

Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) has a mean share price target of $23.00 from 15 brokers. The stock traded today at $18.99, for an implied gain of $4.01, or 17.4%. Pfizer’s forward P/E is 8.26 and the company’s dividend yield is 4.2%. The stock’s 52-week trading range is $16.25-$21.45, and it’s trading today about 17% above its annual low and 11% below its 52-week high. Pfizer’s Lipitor is one of the best selling prescription drugs in the world, but it loses its patent protection next month. Pfizer filed suit against Merck yesterday, in an effort to stop Merck from selling a generic version of Lipitor in combination with Merck’s Zetia anti-cholesterol drug.

AstraZeneca plc (NYSE: AZN) has a mean price target of $51.50 from 4 brokers. The stock is trading at $47.42, for an implied gain of $4.08, or 7.9%. AstraZeneca’s forward P/E is 7.63 and its dividend yield is 3.6%. The stock’s 52-week trading range is $40.89-$53.50, and it’s trading today at about 14% above its 52-week low and about 11% below its 52-week high. Earlier this week the company said it will build a $200 million manufacturing facility in China to meet the demand for AstraZeneca’s medicines in that country. With 1.3 billion potential sick people, China is a natural bet for drug company expansion. The company also said yesterday that it was cutting about 400 employees from its US workforce.

Bristol Meyers Squibb Co. Inc. (NYSE: BMY) has a mean price target of $32.50 from 17 brokers. The stock is trading at $33.08 today, after setting a new 52-week high earlier in the day at $33.20, well above the mean target price. The company’s forward P/E is 16.02 and its dividend yield 4%. The stock’s new trading range is $24.97-$33.20, and it’s trading today at about 32% above its 52-week low. The company’s leukemia drug, Sprycel, received an FDA safety warning today, but nothing seems to be cooling off the stock’s rising price. Bristol Meyers Squibb also made our list of recession-proof companies.

Merck & Co. Inc. (NYSE: MRK) has a mean target price of $40.00 from 17 brokers. The stock trades at $32.57 today, for an implied gain of $7.43, or 18.6%. Merck’s forward P/E is 8.46, and the company’s dividend yield is 4.70%. The stock’s 52-week trading range is $29.47-$37.68, and it’s trading today about 11% above its 52-week low and about 14% below its 52-week high. Merck won a decision in Australia yesterday that overturned that country’s first trial decision against the company’s withdrawn Vioxx painkiller.

Paul Ausick