What happened
Big pharma titan Pfizer Inc. (PFE 1.02%) is having a painful morning. The drugmaker's shares dipped by as much as 5.4% in early morning trading Monday morning in response to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak. The main headline is that the virus has rapidly spread across Italy, Iran, South Korea, and the United States in recent days.
As a result, a worldwide recession, sparked by an interruption in global trading, appears to be a near certainty at this point. Pfizer's shares have rebounded slightly from their early morning swoon, but they are still down by 3.57% as of 9:58 a.m. EDT.
Image source: Getty Images.
So what
Pfizer has consistently been one of the worst performing stocks on the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Investors aren't thrilled with the drugmaker's plans to spin off its legacy products business and subsequently focus on branded medications. The overarching reason is that Pfizer will be losing a sizable chunk of its annual revenues by doing so, which may have a negative impact on its deal-making capacity and shareholder rewards program. The point is that Pfizer's shares were already in a tailspin before today's hefty downturn. Underscoring this point, the pharma giant's shares have now shed almost 15% of their value over the past 12 months.
Now what
Should bargain hunters take advantage of this latest dip in Pfizer's stock? If you are a long-term investor -- meaning you are willing to hold a stock for 10 years or longer, the answer is a resounding yes. This big pharma stock sports a stellar dividend, a great pipeline, and it has a well-defined plan in place to create value for loyal shareholders.
