10 Firms End Friday Strong; 3 Reach All-Time Highs

Wall Street’s main indices finished the trading week in the negative territory as investor sentiment was weighed down by economic uncertainties brought about by the ongoing trade tensions globally.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq fell the heaviest, by 2.70 percent, followed by the S&P 500, by 1.97 percent, and the Dow Jones, by 1.69 percent.

Despite the broader market downturn, 10 individual stocks showed a strong performance during the trading session, with three companies particularly notable for hitting new all-time highs.

In this article, we listed Friday’s top performers and detailed the reasons behind their gains.

To come up with the list, we considered only the stocks with a $2-billion market capitalization and $5 million in trading volume.

Photo by George Morina on Pexels

10. Merck & Co. Inc. (NYSE:MRK)

Shares of Merck & Co. rallied by 1.86 percent on Friday to end at $89.23 apiece following news that it would officially launch in October this year a subcutaneously injectable version of its blockbuster cancer treatment, Keytruda.

According to the company, it targets the approval of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment on September 23 ahead of its October 1 official launch target. The peak adoption rate is expected to hit two years later.

By injecting Keytruda under the skin rather than intravenous delivery, the time it takes for patients to receive the medicine would significantly reduce.

“We’ll be shipping product immediately following approval, in the first week or two following approval is the expectation, and we’ll have more than enough supply to meet the market demand,” said Joanne Monahan, MRK senior vice president in oncology division.

“We expect the greatest uptake, at least initially, in patients who take monotherapy, oral combinations, and those who have early-stage cancers,” she added.

9. Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (NYSE:BMY)

Bristol-Myers saw its share prices increase by 1.90 percent on Friday to finish at $60.02 apiece following news that it earned the backing of a key European regulatory committee for its blockbuster cancer treatment Opdivo.

According to BMY, the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP), a part of the European Medicines Agency, recommended the approval of Opdivo for the treatment of adult solid tumors and is now being reviewed by the European Commission.

A decision from the commission is expected to be released by June 2, 2025.

In other news, BMY announced plans to acquire 2seventy Bio for $286 million. The transaction involved the purchase of all outstanding shares at a price of $5 apiece.

The transaction is expected to be completed in the second quarter of the year, subject to customary closing conditions, including the tender of a majority of the outstanding shares of 2seventy Bio’s common stock and the expiration or termination of the waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976.