With 0.72 million shares changed hands, the volume of the stock remained heavier than its average volume of 0.47 million shares. The 52-week range on MERC shows that it touched its highest point at $11.20 and its lowest point at $3.20 during that stretch. It currently has a 1-year price target of $4.75. With its current market cap of 238.73 million, MERC has annualized dividend of $0.30 while the current yield stands at 8.40%. Beta for the stock currently stands at 1.16.
Price Performance and Earnings:
Stock performance is one of the indicators that investors use to determine whether they will profit from a stock. The price performance of MERC was down-trending over the past week, with a drop of -15.20%, but this was down by -27.29% over a month. Three-month performance dropped to -46.32% while six-month performance fell -43.42%. The stock lost -67.01% in the past year, while it has lost -45.08% so far this year. A look at the trailing 12-month EPS for MERC yields -1.36 with Next year EPS estimates of 0.04. For the next quarter, that number is -0.19. This implies an EPS growth rate of 36.81% for this year and 104.98% for next year.
Float and Shares Shorts:
At present, 66.87 million MERC shares are outstanding with a float of 38.21 million shares on hand for trading.
Analysts Ratings:
Reading analyst opinions is an effective way to decide where to invest, and there are several opinions available for MERC since 6 analysts follow the stock currently. There are 3 analysts who recommend BUY ratings, while 0 suggest SELL ratings. Of the remaining analysts, 3 believe that the stock is worth HOLDING, 0 give it an OVERWEIGHT rating, and 0 thinks that it’s UNDERWEIGHT. In the same way, a target price assigned to a stock can also reveal much about its potential.
EPS: Estimates vs Actual
It is also common to use earnings estimates to evaluate a firm’s growth potential and to determine trading strategy. Analysts have provided yearly estimates in a range of -$1.29037 being high and -$1.35793 being low. For MERC, this leads to a yearly average estimate of -$1.32. Based on analyst estimates, the high estimate for the next quarter is -$0.01 and the low estimate is -$0.15. The average estimate for the next quarter is thus -$0.08.
