Jim Cramer Discusses These 11 Stocks & Finds Few Reasons To Sell

5. Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders In Q3 2024: 86

Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) is a pharmaceutical company that Cramer commonly discusses on his show. Its shares are down by 31.7% over the past year primarily due to troubles in China over the firm’s GARDASIL HPV. Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK)’s stock dropped by 9.8% in July last year after the firm shared that the HPV vaccine’s shipments in China dropped due to anti-corruption and anti-bribery initiatives in the country. The stock lost another 9% in February after it shared that it had paused GARDASIL shipments in China to allow inventory to clear up. Cramer also commented on Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK)’s China woes:

“[GARDASIL China pause] This is an inventory backup by the middleman in China and they basically said, listen we can’t take anymore. They haven’t been able to sell it. It’s a major defeat for Rob Davis. It’s unfortunate because they have tremendous franchising in KEYTRUDA. But they had to put this behind them. They had to be able to say, hey look, we gotta restart here. We’re not selling any GARDASIL. Which by the way is a terrific vaccine, and you would think that the Chinese, if they were good to their people would allow this to be sold. So it was something that I felt was, just came out of nowhere. You know David, we know that Merck is a great company. But the inventories, they could not, help the middleman, and say listen, we’ll take it back. They just had to say, okay we won’t ship anymore. And they have to work the inventory down.”

“It’s a giant franchise. And a great franchise. And I think that if you would have told me you know what the Chinese are not going to let it be sold, I . . .it’s a fantastic vaccine, but [the] fact is it got caught up in what I regard as being a geopolitical tension. And I think that there’s nothing Rob could do about it. But it is gonna bring down the drug stocks. Particularly ugly situation because people are in it for KEYTRUDA and didn’t expect the GARDASIL would be just, that there’s an inventory backup in a drug that’s so important.”