The former Stolper Co is a financial management company that merged with another financial services business to form Wealth Oklahoma in 2025. It initiated a new position in Allison Transmission Holdings (ALSN -2.01%), acquiring 75,606 shares in the third quarter, an estimated $6.4 million trade based on the average price for Q3 2025, according to its October 10, 2025, SEC filing.

What happened

Wealth Oklahoma disclosed the purchase of 75,606 shares of Allison Transmission Holdings in its quarterly report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on October 10, 2025 (SEC filing). The new holding was valued at $6.4 million as of Q3 2025, with the transaction representing 1.9% of Stolper’s $330 million in reportable U.S. equity assets.

What else to know

This is a new position; the stake now accounts for 1.9% of Wealth Oklahoma’s 13F reportable assets as of September 30, 2025.

Top holdings after the filing are as follows:

• BRK-B: $18.96 million (5.75% of AUM) as of 2025-09-30
• JPM: $17.74 million (5.37% of AUM) as of 2025-09-30
• AAPL: $14.90 million (4.52% of AUM) as of 2025-09-30
• GOOGL: $11.92 million (3.6% of AUM) as of 2025-09-30
• COF: $10.73 million (3.25% of AUM as of Q3 2025)

As of October 9, 2025, Allison Transmission shares were priced at $81.02, down 18.4% over the prior year ending October 9, 2025 and underperforming the S&P 500 by 33.9 percentage points over the past year.

The company reported trailing 12-month revenue of $3.2 billion for the period ended June 30, 2025 and net income of $762 million for the period ended June 30, 2025.

Allison Transmission’s dividend yield stood at 1.3% as of October 10, 2025. Shares were 35% below their 52-week high as of October 9, 2025.

Company Overview

Company Snapshot

Allison Transmission designs and manufactures fully automatic transmissions and related parts for commercial, defense, and specialty vehicles. It also offers remanufactured transmissions and aftermarket support.

The company generates revenue primarily through product sales to original equipment manufacturers and aftermarket services, including replacement parts and extended coverage.

Allison Transmission serves a global customer base of OEMs, distributors, dealers, and government agencies, with a focus on commercial vehicle and defense markets.

Allison Transmission is a leading provider of fully automatic transmissions for medium- and heavy-duty commercial and defense vehicles worldwide. The company leverages a broad distribution network and long-standing OEM relationships to maintain a strong position in the auto parts sector.

Foolish take

Founded in 1915, Allison Transmission is a veteran of propulsion systems technology. It’s the world’s largest manufacturer of medium and heavy-duty fully automatic transmissions, according to the company.

Allison Transmission’s sales are down slightly year over year. Through the first half of 2025, revenue stood at $1.58 billion compared to $1.61 billion in 2024.

This lack of sales growth is a contributor to the company’s share price decline, adding to its dismal 2025 outlook, which it slashed due to softness in demand in some of its end markets, such as for medium-duty trucks. Allison Transmission now expects 2025 revenue to come in between $3.1 billion to $3.2 billion, down from $3.2 billion to $3.3 billion.

With Allison Transmission shares hovering around a 52-week low, Wealth Oklahoma took advantage to initiate a position in the stock. This speaks to Wealth Oklahoma’s belief that Allison Transmission can bounce back. This might be the case, given Allison’s recent acquisition of Dana Incorporated, which provides drivetrain and propulsion systems in over 25 countries.

With a price-to-earnings ratio of 9, Allison Transmission’s valuation looks attractive, which also explains Wealth Oklahoma’s purchase. The stock certainly looks like it’s in buy territory.

Glossary

13F reportable assets: U.S. equity holdings that institutional investment managers must disclose quarterly to the SEC on Form 13F.
AUM (Assets Under Management): The total market value of investments managed on behalf of clients by a financial institution or fund manager.
Dividend yield: Annual dividend payments divided by the share price, expressed as a percentage, showing income return on investment.
Trailing twelve months (TTM): The 12-month period ending with the most recent quarterly report.
Original equipment manufacturer (OEM): A company that produces parts or equipment that may be marketed by another manufacturer.
Aftermarket services: Products and support provided after the original sale, such as replacement parts, maintenance, or extended warranties.
Stake: The amount or percentage of ownership an investor or institution holds in a company.
Quarterly report: A financial statement filed every three months, detailing a company’s performance and financial position.
Distribution network: The system of intermediaries, such as dealers and distributors, through which a company sells its products.
Defense market: The sector focused on supplying products and services to military and government defense agencies.

JPMorgan Chase is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Robert Izquierdo has positions in Alphabet, Apple, and JPMorgan Chase. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Apple, and JPMorgan Chase. The Motley Fool recommends Allison Transmission and Capital One Financial. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett helped turn the investment conglomerate into one of the world’s most valuable companies. With a market capitalization of approximately $1.08 trillion as of this writing, Berkshire ranks as the world’s 11th-biggest business (at the time of this writing).

Given Berkshire’s incredible success, it’s little wonder that many investors pay close attention to the company’s stock holdings and strategies. Read on to see why two Motley Fool contributors think that these Berkshire Hathaway portfolio components stand out as great buys right now.

One of Buffett’s favorites

Jennifer Saibil (Apple): Warren Buffett has been selling Apple (AAPL 0.28%) stock left and right, so I might be going against the grain to say that Apple is one of his best stocks to buy today. But Buffett himself is a contrarian investor, so I’m only following in his footsteps.

In any case, Apple is still the largest stock in the portfolio, accounting for more than a fifth of the total, so Buffett hasn’t lost confidence in it at all. He has said he would never sell as long as he’s controlling Berkshire Hathaway, but that time is coming to an end, and investors are already speculating as to whether Greg Abel will keep it in the portfolio.

But many of the same reasons Buffett originally bought it still hold today. Apple has a large and differentiated consumer products business with a sticky ecosystem, and loyal fans purchase an assortment of its devices, which easily connect to each other. Although it’s often labeled as a tech business, which isn’t in Buffett’s wheelhouse, it’s at least as much the kind of consumer products business that he loves. The tech part also gives him exposure to artificial intelligence (AI), which may not be the reason he bought it, but is a reason many other investors might find it exciting.

So far, Apple Intelligence has disappointed investors. Apple hasn’t released AI services that stand out, and it doesn’t have a strong timeline for when it will.

Still, the recent debut of its newest iPhone, the iPhone Air, demonstrates why fans love Apple and rush to buy its latest launches. It’s the thinnest smartphone on the market, and the design appeals to style-conscious users who often wear their devices as statement pieces. Apple just debuted several new launches that will go on sale later this month, including the new iPhone17 that ramps up the quality and capabilities users love and pay up for, and new AirPods that use Apple Intelligence to translate language in real time.

In other words, Apple is still on top of its game, and it isn’t likely that its customers are going anywhere else anytime soon. However, Apple stock fell after the new products were announced, and it’s down 10% this year. The market didn’t seem to think its launches had enough innovation, especially with AI. That makes this a great opportunity to buy on the dip for the long-term investor.

Amazon stock still looks like a great long-term play

Keith Noonan (Amazon): Like Apple, Amazon (AMZN -1.34%) stock has been a high-profile tech-sector underperformer in 2025. The e-commerce and cloud computing giant’s share price is up just 2% across this year’s trading. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 index’s level has risen roughly 15%, and the Nasdaq Composite‘s level has surged approximately 18%.

Also like Apple, Amazon is also part of Berkshire Hathaway’s stock portfolio. Coming in at just 0.7% of Berkshire’s public stock holdings, Amazon occupies a relatively small position in the investment conglomerate’s portfolio — but I think the tech leader stands out as a strong long-term investment at today’s prices.

Trading at roughly 33.5 times this year’s expected earnings, Amazon admittedly still has a growth-dependent valuation. On the other hand, the extent to which the stock has underperformed the broader market in recent years points to an opportunity. For reference, the company’s share price has risen just 43% over the last five years. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite have both more than doubled across that stretch.

There are some good reasons behind the underperformance. For starters, the company’s e-commerce business faced some substantial headwinds from supply chain disruptions and inflationary trends connected to the pandemic. With the majority of the company’s sales still coming from its e-commerce business, Amazon is also facing some pressures from tariffs.

On the other hand, Amazon remains one of the world’s strongest businesses — and it’s likely in the early stages of capitalizing on AI-related tailwinds that power incredible new growth phases. The growth catalysts that AI can present for the company’s cloud-infrastructure services business seem to be acknowledged but still broadly underappreciated. Meanwhile, the market seems to be largely overlooking the transformative impact that AI and robotics will have on margins for its e-commerce business. With Amazon positioned to benefit from powerful tech trends, the stock looks like a smart buy while it’s still a market laggard.

Jennifer Saibil has positions in Apple. Keith Noonan has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Apple, and Berkshire Hathaway. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

If there is one thing that investors need to understand about the energy sector, it is that oil and natural gas prices are inherently volatile. But there’s a somewhat counterintuitive takeaway here. Sometimes the best investment opportunities arise when business in the oil space isn’t going so well.

Which is why investors might want to buy ConocoPhillips (COP -2.80%) today. Indeed, the company’s successful business overhaul is so obvious that it is hard not to notice (at least partly because the company is so happy to point it out).

Not such a great quarter for sales and earnings

ConcoPhillips’ earnings in the second quarter of 2025 weren’t great when you compare it to the same quarter in 2024, with a drop from $1.98 per share last year down to just $1.56 this year. But that doesn’t even do justice to the energy company’s earnings decline, since pulling out a one-time gain in the second quarter of 2025 drops the total down to $1.42 per share. That’s the worst quarterly earnings outcome in over a year and down sequentially from even the first quarter.

But that’s kind of how things go in the energy sector, where oil and natural gas prices drive the top and bottom lines of the income statement. In fact, it isn’t even remotely unusual for ConocoPhillips’ earnings to be volatile from quarter to quarter. That said, the energy sector is, generally, not in the best place today relative to the highs achieved in the price rebound coming out of the coronavirus pandemic.

For example, ConocoPhillips’ share price has fallen around 25% from its late 2022 highs. For comparison, Brent Crude, a key international oil benchmark, and West Texas Intermediate Crude, a key U.S. oil benchmark, have both lost about a third of their value over the same span. This could actually be a good time for more aggressive investors to consider buying ConocoPhillips.

An obvious reason to like ConocoPhillips

Assuming you can stomach the uncertainty of a commodity-based business like ConocoPhillips, there are good things happening at the company. Notably, it has been integrating the acquisition of Marathon Oil and executing above expectations. For example, it added 25% more resources than projected when the deal was inked. Despite that, it also managed to reduce the number of rigs it was operating on the added properties by 30%. All in, it was able to double the business synergies it projected, saving $1 billion in costs annually. And management managed to set up $2.5 billion in dispositions in nine months, when it had previously been looking to shed $2 billion in assets over a two-year period.

The dispositions are a special consideration. ConocoPhillips isn’t looking to get big for the sake of getting big. It is attempting to optimize its portfolio of assets so it can focus on only its best properties. That, in turn, should help to improve profitability over the long term. To be fair, even the best properties won’t change the variability in energy prices. But wider profit margins means the company will make more money when times are good and have more downside leeway when times are bad. ConocoPhillips isn’t hiding its success, it is proudly telling investors all about what it has achieved. In other words, there are obvious improvements taking shape at the business.

This is the setup for better performance in the future

To state the obvious again, as an energy company, energy prices are going to dictate ConocoPhillips’ financial results. Conservative investors looking for consistent earnings or reliable dividends (the company pays a dividend regularly, but the amount of the dividend is highly variable) probably shouldn’t buy the stock.

But if you are looking for direct exposure to energy prices, ConocoPhillips could be a solid choice given management’s efforts to overhaul the business. When commodity prices take off again, the upgrades made to the portfolio will help supercharge ConocoPhillips’ financial results. And Wall Street will almost certainly reward the stock for that.

Meta Platforms (META 1.93%), one of the leading social media companies, went public in 2012. Since then, the stock has performed exceptionally well. Its returns over this period are well above those of broader equities. However, some might argue that it’s too late to get in on the bandwagon.

Meta Platforms is now worth almost $2 trillion. Can the stock still generate life-changing returns? Let’s find out.

The bullish case for Meta Platforms

Meta’s bread and butter is advertising. The company boasts a portfolio of social media brands that includes Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp. It has more than 3 billion daily active users across these platforms as of the end of the second quarter of 2025. The sheer volume of Meta’s ecosystem makes it an attractive place to run ads, but the company goes even further.

It has access to a considerable amount of data from its users, including basic demographic information, interests, favorite celebrities, and much more. This enables the company to assist businesses in crafting ads that are carefully targeted toward specific audiences, making them highly cost-effective.

Meta Platforms’ strategy has been successful, as evidenced by its financial results. Second-quarter revenue increased 22% year over year to $47.5 billion, while earnings per share came in at $7.14, 38% higher than the year-ago period.

The company’s core advertising business will remain central to its results for the foreseeable future. And here is the good news: Meta is improving its ad business thanks to artificial intelligence (AI). On the one hand, it helps improve the ad launch process with AI-powered tools that assist businesses in crafting ads, including by generating relevant messages and images and further enhancing targeting. On the other hand, AI-powered algorithms are boosting engagement on the company’s websites and apps.

The result: Time spent on Facebook and Instagram has increased lately. And according to a study the company ran, AI-powered ad tools improved return on ad spend by 22%.Meta is looking to automate the ad process completely, which should lead to even greater gains. The company could perform well as it moves toward that goal. But what happens beyond advertising?

In my view, Meta Platforms’ greatest strength is its ecosystem and culture of innovation. With several billion users, the tech giant can develop various monetization schemes, only a few of which need to take off to have a meaningful impact on its financial results. Meta is gradually expanding into other avenues, including paid messaging on WhatsApp. The company is investing in AI glasses, which CEO Mark Zuckerberg believes will become the norm within the next decade.

Thanks to its core business, its vast ecosystem, and various other initiatives, Meta could still deliver market-beating returns over the next 20 years.

Some risks to consider

Meta Platforms may encounter some obstacles. For instance, the company is spending a small fortune on AI infrastructure. That could be a problem if its AI initiatives don’t have the impact it hopes they will, especially if we enter an economic recession. Consumers spend less — and so do businesses, including on advertising — when the economy is struggling. The combination of slower revenue growth (if ad spending decreases) and increased expenses due to Meta’s investments in AI could harm the company’s financial results.

Antitrust lawsuits could present another potential threat to Meta Platforms. Regulators in the U.S. have argued that Meta has a monopoly in the social networking space. These lawsuits are still ongoing. In the worst-case scenario, Meta may be forced to divest some of its assets. Do these potential challenges justify avoiding the stock? Not in my view. Meta proved it could navigate economic challenges a couple of years ago.

Amid growing expenses, declining user growth, and slower revenue increases, the company regrouped, cut costs, and emerged from the ordeal stronger than ever. Meta’s AI plans are, so far, yielding tangible results, and we haven’t seen all that the company can do in this area yet.

Regarding the company’s legal problems, while it’s worth keeping an eye on those, a potential and uncertain worst-case scenario shouldn’t deter investors from this robust, well-run business that is firing on all cylinders. It might be worth revisiting the question if Meta loses its antitrust case, but the stock’s prospects remain highly attractive as things stand.

Lastly, Meta is now a dividend stock — a fairly new development — and reinvesting the payout will boost what should already be superior returns over the long run. So can Meta Platforms set investors up for life? I think it can.

For decades, UnitedHealth Group (UNH 0.47%) could do no wrong. The company raised its dividend by an exceptional 7,266% from 2010 to 2025, while shares rose as much as 1,700% during this run.

But shares have fallen roughly 40% year to date as the company faces a host of problems, from the murder of Brian Thompson, CEO of major business segment UnitedHealthcare, to federal investigations into allegedly fraudulent Medicare billing practices.

Nonetheless, shares surged 12% on Aug. 14 after filings revealed Berkshire Hathaway had bought over 5 million shares.

Berkshire’s move was seen as a major vote of confidence in the stock — and investors joined a stampede to follow Warren Buffett into the trade. Should you?

Big growth potential for all segments

UnitedHealth operates through four segments. Its UnitedHealthcare segment provides consumer-oriented health benefit plans and services for employers. Optum Health provides healthcare management and financial services, while Optum Insight offers data analysis tools, consulting, and tech solutions to healthcare providers. Optum Rx is a direct-to-consumer platform offering pharmacy services and 190 million prescriptions per year to U.S. homes.

In its second-quarter report on July 29, the company reported quarterly revenue of $111.6 billion, up roughly 13% from the year-ago period. The trouble is with margins. For UnitedHealthcare, the biggest segment, operating margin fell from 6.2% in Q1 2025 to 2.4% last quarter. Combined, margin for the three Optum segments fell from 6.1% in Q1 2025 to 4.6% in Q2.

These declines are steep enough that, even with revenue on the upswing, earnings fell from $9.1 billion in Q1 2025 to $5.2 billion last quarter.

Rising medical costs are the chief headwind. In the July earnings report, new CEO Stephen Hensley acknowledged that UNH “significantly underestimated the accelerating medical trend,” and medical costs totaled $6.5 billion more than anticipated.

But management is under no such illusions now. They’re taking actions to boost efficiency and cut waste, from stepping up audits of clinical policy and payment integrity tools, to scaling artificial intelligence (AI) efforts to improve provider and patient experiences while driving down costs. Implementation of AI technologies is part of initiatives the company hopes can deliver almost $1 billion in cost reductions. Perhaps most significantly, the company is raising premiums after saying it underpriced Medicare Advantage plans in 2025.

In the meantime, each of these segments could grow significantly in the years ahead. UnitedHealthcare Employer & Individual just rolled out services in its 30th state, while Optum Rx’s growth outlook is 5%-8% annually. Optum Insight is targeting operating margin of 18%-22%, while the 4.7 million patients receiving value-based care from OptumHealth represent only a fraction of the nearly 340 million Americans who could fall under its 100-plus health plans.

It’s not just Berkshire buying

Berkshire Hathaway’s move in UnitedHealth is getting headlines. But billionaire David Tepper also scooped up 2.3 million shares, while Michael Burry of The Big Short fame bought 350,000 call options on the stock in a bet that shares would rise.

In addition, BlackRock, the world’s biggest asset manager, bought over 1 million shares last quarter. Goldman Sachs bought over 1.1 million shares, while Renaissance Technologies (the fabled fund that achieved an average annual return of 66% for decades) bought over 1.35 million.

As for management, Stephen Hensley invested $25 million just days after becoming CEO, while the company’s CFO bought another $5 million worth in shares. All told, the insider buying of UNH stock outweighed insider selling by a nearly 4:1 margin last quarter.

As the investing legend Peter Lynch observed, insiders can sell for many reasons unrelated to a stock. But they buy for only one: They think shares will go up.

Why UnitedHealth is a buy for retail investors, too

Berkshire officials haven’t commented publicly on their rationale for buying UnitedHealthcare, but it’s possible to speculate on their reasons.

Warren Buffett has called cash flow the most important metric in assessing a business’s potential. In a 2000 letter to shareholders, he wrote that dividend yield, the price-to-earnings ratio, book value, and even growth rates “have nothing to do with valuation except to the extent they provide clues to the amount and timing of cash flows into and from the business.”

Positive cash flow shows the company can cover its obligations, return money to shareholders, and potentially pursue growth and expansion. After floundering in 2024, UnitedHealth’s trailing-12-month operating cash flow has rebounded to $29 billion compared to $24.2 billion at the end of last year.

And if price-to-earnings, dividend yield, and growth rates are only background clues to cash flow, these metrics seem to bode well for UnitedHealth, too.

The company’s price-to-earnings ratio of 13.7 is cheap compared to the S&P 500,
with its average P/E ratio of around 26, while revenue growth of 13% year over year further fuels the bull case. Meanwhile, the company’s recent 5.2% dividend increase — its 15th consecutive annual payout hike — brings its yield to 2.8% as I write this, nearly triple the S&P 500 average.

For investors willing to take a long-term approach and be rewarded with rising income in the meantime, UnitedHealth is a buy.

If you’ve ever sat in bumper-to-bumper city traffic, then surely you’ve had the thought: If only my car could fly. Archer Aviation (ACHR -2.55%) thinks it can make that wish more than science fiction.

Instead of flying cars, however, Archer is making air taxis — eVTOLs, or electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft. These electric-powered vessels hold four passengers, fly at speeds up to 150 miles per hour, and are designed to land with less noise and downwash than a helicopter. Their presence above traffic may not solve urban congestion, but for passengers who can’t wait 45 minutes in a car, a ticket in one could make this $5.7 billion company a staple in transportation.

Emphasis there on could. Archer is pre-revenue and doesn’t have the regulatory approval to fly commercial passengers. Although investors have been enthusiastic about the company’s progress thus far, shares have fallen about 35% from the 52-week high.

That begs the question: Should you buy now while shares have dropped, or wait for more concrete actions?

Why the stock could take off

Anyone who has sat in city traffic knows firsthand the opportunity that Archer has before it. Roads can only be widened so much, and accidents during rush hour can make already congested highways a grueling hour in your car. This isn’t just a headache for commuters. It’s also a problem for ambulances and other medical responders, for whom the difference between life and death is often a matter of seconds.

To be sure, Archer’s core opportunity is short-hop routes (like 15- to 50-mile trips) at a high price point. Example: A route from Manhattan to nearby airports. On the ground, this could take a couple of hours. But in an eVTOL, like Archer’s Midnight, one could theoretically fly from Manhattan vertiports to Newark Liberty Airport in 10 to 15 minutes.

The total addressable market for Archer could be big. Although it’s hard to value a market that doesn’t exist yet, analysts at Morgan Stanley estimate that the urban air mobility market will be worth about $9 trillion by 2050. Archer’s valuation is currently about $5.7 billion. Even capturing a fraction of that market could mean decades of double-digit growth — though, to be sure, the gap between Archer’s current reality and its TAM is cavernous.

Archer may not be generating revenue, but it’s backed by some blue-chip giants, including United Airlines (NASDAQ: UAL) and Stellantis (NYSE: STLA). It has also aligned with Japan Airlines, Ethiopian Airlines, and Abu Dhabi Aviation, with plans to move air taxi rides into a commercial phase in the United Arab Emirates in 2026.

What could keep Archer grounded?

As good as air taxis sound, the eVTOL industry is still largely unproven. Part of the reason for that is the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The FAA, whose certifications allow aviation companies like Archer to fly paying customers, has a complex process for approving aircraft, and no eVTOL company in the U.S. has gotten through all the hurdles to put paying passengers into the air yet.

That doesn’t mean it won’t happen. In fact, Archer and other eVTOL companies could be close to gaining the FAA’s approval soon. Until it does, however, watch Archer’s balance sheet closely. Time means money, and right now Archer isn’t making any. Its cash position is extra fragile as it continues testing and building Midnight craft. Luckily, it sits on about $1.7 billion in cash and short-term investments. That gives it more than a couple of years to continue operating at its current cash burn rate.

ACHR data by YCharts.

Another thing to watch is the progress of Archer’s rival, Joby Aviation (JOBY -0.67%). Like Archer, Joby is backed by blue-chip companies, like Toyota and Delta , and is also stuck waiting for the FAA to approve its eVTOL designs. The risk for Archer, however, is if Joby gets approval. That would give it a first-mover advantage in key markets, placing Archer in “catch up” mode even before it has a chance to build out vertiports.

Speaking of which, that brings me to the last big hurdle: the build-out. Archer, Joby, and other eVTOL companies are designing aircraft for an infrastructure that doesn’t exist yet. To turn the sky into a highway free of traffic, it needs not only aircraft but vertiports and charging stations, all of which will take capital and years of coordination before paying customers can board.

Does that mean Archer isn’t a buy at its current price? Not exactly. You just have to know what you’re buying. This is a pre-revenue company waiting on FAA-type certification to fly its aircraft. If you can live with a multi-year timeline and can stomach turbulence in the near term, a small holding could set you up down the road. If you need predictability, look elsewhere.

Merck (MRK -1.91%), a leading pharmaceutical company, generates consistent revenue and profits. However, the stock has been under pressure over the past year due to its reliance on Keytruda, its famous cancer medicine. It might be the best-selling drug in the world, but Keytruda will experience a patent cliff by the end of the decade — a significant risk investors have to take into consideration.

Merck has been looking for ways to mitigate the risk of competition, and the drugmaker just made a move that could help along those lines. Should investors consider buying the stock?

Merck dishes $10 billion to expand its lineup

On July 9, Merck announced that it would acquire Verona Pharma, a U.K.-based biotechnology company specializing in the development of medicines for respiratory diseases. Merck will pay $10 billion in cash for this transaction, allowing it to add Ohtuvayre — which treats chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) — to its portfolio.

First approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last year, Ohtuvayre is a treatment for COPD that looks highly promising. It has so far had a successful launch, and it is still being investigated across other conditions, which could later lead to label expansions.

Though estimates vary (as always), some analysts think Ohtuvayre sales could peak at around $4 billion. So, it seems the company has yet another blockbuster on its hands. But will that be enough to replace Keytruda?

Merck’s multipronged approach

Merck has entered into several such agreements in recent years. In 2021, it acquired Acceleron Pharma for $11.5 billion. This deal eventually allowed it to launch Winrevair, a medicine for pulmonary arterial tension. Winrevair is yet another promising therapy, with projected peak sales at around $3 billion.

Between Ohtuvayre and Winrevair, that’s at most $7 billion in peak annual revenue, though, much lower than the $29.5 billion in sales Keytruda generated last year. Merck will need far more than that, but the company does have a plan.

Some of its acquisitions have yet to yield approved products with blockbuster potential. In 2023, the company paid $10.8 billion for Prometheus Biosciences and its promising candidate for ulcerative colitis, MK-7240. That could be another great addition to the company’s portfolio, provided it aces enough clinical trials to land regulatory approval from the FDA.

Merck isn’t just relying on buyouts to plan for its post-Keytruda life, though. One of the company’s most important internally developed projects is a subcutaneous (SC) version of its crown jewel. SC Keytruda recently aced a phase 3 clinical trial in which it proved noninferiority compared to the original, intravenous version of the medicine in treating patients with non-small cell lung cancer, one of Keytruda’s most important markets.

The newer version of the cancer therapy does have some advantages over the old, though, including significantly cutting the time patients spend in the treatment room and the time physicians spend preparing the therapy, administering it, and monitoring patients afterward.

SC Keytruda should attract plenty of business across many of the original’s indications once all is said and done. And, together with the newer therapies Merck now has under its banner, should allow the company to smooth out the losses once biosimilar competition for Keytruda enters the market.

The stock could perform well post-Keytruda

Merck currently has more than 80 programs across its phase 2 and phase 3 pipeline. So, even beyond the candidates mentioned, the company should be able to find new gems.

Putting aside label expansions for existing medicines, even a 25% success rate on brand-new clinical compounds should translate to several novel launches over the next five years. Not all will be blockbusters, but Merck’s deep pipeline and recent moves show that it is capable of moving beyond Keytruda.

Additionally, there are other reasons to consider buying the stock. First, Merck’s shares look incredibly cheap right now. The company is trading at 9.3 times forward earnings estimates. The average for the healthcare sector is 16.2.

Second, Merck is a solid dividend stock. The company’s forward yield sits around 4%, and it has increased its payouts by 88.8% in the past decade.

Merck’s shares have lagged the market over the past year, but the company’s prospects are still strong, at least for those willing to hold onto the stock for a while.