It’s offering you a COVID upside

Article Excerpt

PFIZER INC. $36 is a buy. The company (New York symbol PFE; Income Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 5.55 billion; Market cap: $199.8 billion; Dividend yield: 4.2%; Dividend Sustainability Rating: Highest; www.pfizer.com) is one of the world’s largest makers of prescription drugs. Its top-selling brands include Lyrica (epilepsy), Celebrex (arthritis pain), Prevnar (pneumonia) and Enbrel (rheumatoid arthritis). Starting with the March 2020 payment, the company increased its quarterly dividend by 5.6%, to $0.38 a share from $0.36. The new annual rate of $1.52 yields a solid 4.2% for investors. The COVID-19 outbreak should little impact sales of Pfizer’s current drugs. The company is also working on potential vaccines for the coronavirus with German drugmaker BioNTech (Nasdaq symbol BNTX). as part of the deal, Pfizer paid $185 million to BioNTech, which included a $113 million equity stake. If clinical trials are successful, the partners could supply millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses by the end of 2020. 2020…