Editor's Note: Any reference to TheStreet Ratings and its underlying recommendation does not reflect the opinion of TheStreet, Inc. or any of its contributors including Jim Cramer.

Trade-Ideas LLC identified

Merck

(

MRK

) as a pre-market leader candidate. In addition to specific proprietary factors, Trade-Ideas identified Merck as such a stock due to the following factors:

• MRK has an average dollar-volume (as measured by average daily share volume multiplied by share price) of $855.0 million.

• MRK traded 62,557 shares today in the pre-market hours as of 9:21 AM.

• MRK is up 2.2% today from Friday's close.

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More details on MRK:

Merck & Co., Inc. provides health care solutions worldwide. The stock currently has a dividend yield of 3.1%. MRK has a PE ratio of 14.3. Currently there are 6 analysts that rate Merck a buy, no analysts rate it a sell, and 7 rate it a hold.

The average volume for Merck has been 10.9 million shares per day over the past 30 days. Merck has a market cap of $165.2 billion and is part of the health care sector and drugs industry. The stock has a beta of 0.45 and a short float of 0.9% with 1.79 days to cover. Shares are up 3.1% year-to-date as of the close of trading on Friday.

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TheStreetRatings.com

Analysis:

TheStreet Quant Ratings

rates Merck as a

buy

. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its compelling growth in net income, largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures, notable return on equity, attractive valuation levels and expanding profit margins. We feel these strengths outweigh the fact that the company shows weak operating cash flow.

Highlights from the ratings report include:

• The net income growth from the same quarter one year ago has significantly exceeded that of the S&P 500 and the Pharmaceuticals industry. The net income increased by 836.7% when compared to the same quarter one year prior, rising from $781.00 million to $7,316.00 million.
• The current debt-to-equity ratio, 0.44, is low and is below the industry average, implying that there has been successful management of debt levels. Along with the favorable debt-to-equity ratio, the company maintains an adequate quick ratio of 1.19, which illustrates the ability to avoid short-term cash problems.
• The company's current return on equity greatly increased when compared to its ROE from the same quarter one year prior. This is a signal of significant strength within the corporation. In comparison to the other companies in the Pharmaceuticals industry and the overall market, MERCK & CO's return on equity significantly exceeds that of the industry average and is above that of the S&P 500.
• The gross profit margin for MERCK & CO is currently very high, coming in at 78.22%. It has increased from the same quarter the previous year. Along with this, the net profit margin of 69.79% significantly outperformed against the industry average.

• You can view the full Merck Ratings Report.

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