Bayer’s Stock Holds the Line as Fertilizer Fears, Pharma Data, and a Supreme Court Ruling Converge

Bayer shares hover near key technical level as promising kidney drug results, looming Supreme Court ruling on glyphosate, and potential fertilizer shock create divergent pressures.

Bayer’s shares are walking a tightrope. The stock ended last week at €35.88, barely 0.22% above the widely watched 200-day moving average of €35.80. That hair’s-breadth cushion leaves the German group with almost no room for error as a trio of fundamentally different forces — a promising kidney drug, a looming Supreme Court decision, and a potential fertilizer supply shock — pull the narrative in opposite directions.

The most immediate positive catalyst came from Glasgow. On Friday, at the ERA Congress, Bayer unveiled full results from the Phase-III FIND-CKD study of Kerendia (finerenone). In patients with non-diabetic chronic kidney disease, the drug significantly slowed disease progression and reduced the risk of combined cardiovascular events compared with placebo. The company plans to file the data with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to expand Kerendia’s label. Because non-diabetic kidney disease accounts for the vast majority of the estimated 850 million people affected worldwide, the addressable market is enormous. For a pharma division that has long been overshadowed by legal woes, the news offered a rare, concrete reason for optimism.

Yet that hope is being held hostage by a legal time bomb. In July 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule in the Durnell case, which asks whether state-court verdicts can stand when the Environmental Protection Agency has already classified glyphosate as safe. A favorable ruling could knock out a large portion of the roughly 65,000 remaining lawsuits. An adverse one would extend the litigation drag for years. The stock’s mid-term performance already reflects the uncertainty: year-to-date, it has fallen 5.64%, and the short-term moving averages are stacked above the current price, blocking any rapid recovery.

Adding a layer of geopolitical risk, Bayer CEO Bill Anderson used a Friday interview with t-online to warn of a looming squeeze on the global fertilizer market. Roughly one-third of the world’s nitrogen-based fertilizer trade passes through the Strait of Hormuz. If that chokepoint remains blocked, northern-hemisphere harvests could shrink noticeably as early as autumn. Bayer does not produce fertilizer itself, but the company’s seeds business depends on farmers’ purchasing power. Lower yields driven by fertilizer shortages mean less demand for seed — a direct hit to the Crop Science division, which has been the group’s strongest performer of late.

Anderson also used the interview to renew his criticism of Germany as a business location, pointing to high labor costs, red tape, and energy prices. Electricity in Germany, he said, is more than three times as expensive as on the Texas Gulf Coast and more than double the price in China. He stopped short of attacking Chancellor Friedrich Merz directly but called for a “clear mission” to reignite innovation. The complaint adds to a growing chorus of German executives warning that the country’s cost base is eroding competitiveness.

The strength of Crop Science made Anderson’s warning particularly untimely. In the first quarter, the division’s revenue rose 6.8% to €7.558 billion. However, €448 million of that growth came from the termination of a licensing agreement with Corteva in North America — a one-off boost that will not repeat. Once that effect fades, the health of underlying farmer demand will become the real test. A fertilizer-driven drop in demand could not come at a worse moment.

Technically, the stock is in a precarious but not yet broken position. The 200-day line at €35.80 has held so far, and the slight bounce off it late last week offered a modicum of relief. But the distance to the next major support — the multi-month low from June — is uncomfortably narrow. Until the Supreme Court delivers its verdict or the Hormuz situation clears, Bayer’s share price looks set to remain glued to that moving average, with the Kerendia data serving as a fragile counterweight to a heavy load of liabilities.