On June 20, 2014, Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK), known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, is commencing, through a subsidiary, a cash tender offer to purchase all outstanding shares of common stock of Idenix Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:IDIX). Merck announced its intent to acquire Idenix. Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK), net profit margin is 14.00% and weekly performance is 0.77%. On last trading day company shares ended up $58.86. Analysts mean target price for the company is $59.44. Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK), distance from 50-day simple moving average (SMA50) is 3.56%.
Shares of E I Du Pont De Nemours And Co (NYSE:DD), saw a significant drop in short interest in the month of May. As of May 15th, there was short interest totalling 18,097,162 shares, a drop of 13.0% from the April 30th total of 20,793,269 shares,StockRatingsNetwork.com reports. Currently, 2.0% of the shares of the stock are sold short. Based on an average daily volume of 3,135,353 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 5.8 days. E I Du Pont De Nemours And Co (NYSE:DD), advanced 0.71% in last trading session and ended the day on $67.82. DD, Gross Margin is 37.40% and its return on assets is 5.80%. E I Du Pont De Nemours And Co (NYSE:DD), quarterly performance is 2.65%.
On June 23, 2014, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), is upping its game in the cloud storage business. The Seattle-based software giant announced that it would offer greater storage space and lower pricing for customers of its cloud services, as it looks to gain market share in the highly lucrative cloud business. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), shares moved up 0.68% in last trading session and was closed at $42.03, while trading in range of $41.46 – 42.05. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), year to date (YTD) performance is 14.00%.
On June 18, 2014, Russia moved to prevent the U.S. payment card firms Mastercard and Visa Inc (NYSE:V), quitting Russia by pledging to reduce the size of the deposit required for them to operate in the country. New rules imposed on foreign card companies following Western sanctions over Ukraine required the payment operators to deposit collateral with the central bank worth two days of their average processing volume in Russia, in eight quarterly instalments. Both companies considered quitting Russia after President Vladimir Putin signed the rules into law in early May, but said they would stay after officials showed a willingness to relax the requirements. First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said the deposit payment would be “significantly reduced”. Visa Inc (NYSE:V), ended the last trading day at $209.06. Company weekly volatility is calculated as 1.46% and price to cash ratio as 29.74. Visa Inc (NYSE:V), showed a negative weekly performance of 1.04%.
On June 11, 2014, Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE:CAT), declared a quarterly dividend of $0.70 per share, or $2.8 annualized. This is a 16.7% increase from the prior dividend of $0.60. Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE:CAT), net profit margin is 6.90% and weekly performance is 0.89%. On last trading day company shares ended up $108.44. Analysts mean target price for the company is $111.96. Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE:CAT), distance from 50-day simple moving average (SMA50) is 3.08%.