ANALYST: Most investors respect the Merck CEO’s decision to resign from Trump’s council

Most investors respect Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier's decision to resign from US President Donald Trump's manufacturing council, a move that preceded the outflow of other executives and led to the eventual disbanding of two panels mostly made up of business leaders.That's according to a BMO Capital Markets analysts' note, which we first spotted thanks to CNBC's Meg Tirrell.

"Based on our conversations with investors, we believe most respect Mr. Frazier's decision," the analysts wrote. "Clearly, other business leaders are arriving at a similar conclusion and acting accordingly."

Frazier resigned from the manufacturing council on Monday morning after the president failed to explicitly denounce white supremacists after violent clashes over the weekend. He

"As CEO of Merck, and as a matter of personal conscience, I feel a responsibility to take a stand against intolerance and extremism," he said in a statement.

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The BMO Capital Markets team addressed that as well, saying: "It is unclear whether Mr. Frazier's decision could lead to a more severe Executive Action (EA) targeting drug prices and whether such an EA would be viewed as retaliation by the President, thus, potentially compromising its success."

"We doubt that an EA could have material impact on the branded Pharma industry," they continued. "However, lowering drug prices is a politically attractive issue and there are reform areas that should have bipartisan support."

Even if the drug pricing issue does grow more complicated, investors seem to think that Frazier's decision to act on principle was the right one. Merck's shares are slightly higher this week. As Bloomberg View's Matt Levine wrote on Wednesday in his daily newsletter:

"This is a financial newsletter, but I have never assumed that the operations of capital are autonomous and self-executing, or that executives are robots who are programmed to maximize shareholder value to the exclusion of all other considerations. Corporations exist in society, and are not above society's concerns. Businesses operate through human beings, who remain human in their roles as CEOs. One would hope."