Merck Turned $1,000 Into $3,395 in a Decade but the Real Story Happened in the Last Year

Anyone who put $1,000 into Merck (NYSE:MRK | MRK Price Prediction) ten years ago is sitting on a 239.48% gain in share price alone. The drama is recent. The stock rose 95.25% over the past year and 44.50% year to date, moves that look nothing like a typical pharma year. At $149.00, shares have traveled most of the way from a 52-week low of $79.67 toward a high of $156.00.

Keytruda Built Merck, and Now Merck Is Buying Its Next Act

Merck is a large-cap drugmaker anchored by Keytruda, a cancer immunotherapy that has expanded from metastatic disease into 13 earlier-stage indications. In the second quarter of 2026, the Keytruda family grew 4% to $8.4 billion of $16.6 billion in total revenue. Annual revenue rose from $39.498 billion in 2015 to $64.926 billion in 2025.

Some products stumbled. Gardasil sales in China fell to zero in 2025, and full-year Gardasil sales declined 39%. Merck responded by buying Verona Pharma (about $10 billion), Cidara (about $9.2 billion) and Terns. Pulmonary hypertension drug Winrevair grew 88% to $525 million in Q1 2026.

Merck Trailed the S&P 500 for a Decade, Then Lapped It

10-Year Return

• Initial Investment: $1,000
• Price Return: 239.48%
• S&P 500 (same period): 254.29%

5-Year Return

• Initial Investment: $1,000
• Price Return: 131.14%
• S&P 500 (same period): 76.39%

1-Year Return

• Initial Investment: $1,000
• Price Return: 95.25%
• S&P 500 (same period): 15.79%

Over ten years, Merck slightly fell behind the index on price. The five-year and one-year windows flip that decisively. Timing mattered: shares traded at $78.93 at the July 2025 earnings filing and $127.69 by August 2026. Selling during that slump meant missing much of the decade’s return.

Rising Dividends Did Quiet Work

Merck pays $0.85 quarterly, up from $0.81 before its latest raise, for an annualized $3.40. In 2016 the payout was $0.46, with no cuts in the history since. Reinvested, those checks make the real decade better than the price figure implies (if a rising payout on a blue-chip is the kind of position you build a portfolio around, we ranked ten of the longest dividend-growth streaks by valuation in a free Dividend Kings report).

Why the 119x Trailing P/E Misleads

The trailing P/E is 119 on trailing EPS of just $1.25. Acquisition charges distort it: a $9 billion Cidara charge pushed Q1 2026 EPS to -$1.28, and Q2 EPS came in at -$0.13. The forward P/E of 15 better reflects earnings power.

I’d Hold Through Merck’s Hill

Merck would get my $1,000 today if Keytruda Qlex ($463 million in quarterly sales) and the pipeline, including positive Phase 3 data for sac-TMT, replace Keytruda revenue as patents expire. CEO Rob Davis calls that period “more of a hill than a cliff.”

The stock is a pass for me if early 2026’s three failed Phase 3 oncology results signal a pattern, or if roughly $14.8 billion in acquisition charges buys less growth than promised.

At 15x forward earnings, I lean toward owning it. The decade’s lesson: much of the gain arrived in one short burst, which rewards holding through slow years rather than trading around them.

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