Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) Stock Sinks As Market Gains: What You Should Know
In the latest trading session, Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) closed at $84.67, marking a -0.21% move from the previous day. This change lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.82%. Elsewhere, the Dow gained 0.79%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 0.79%.
Heading into today, shares of the largest U.S. drugstore chain had gained 6.2% over the past month, outpacing the Retail-Wholesale sector's gain of 6.1% and the S&P 500's gain of 3.94% in that time.
Wall Street will be looking for positivity from WBA as it approaches its next earnings report date. This is expected to be January 3, 2019. In that report, analysts expect WBA to post earnings of $1.45 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 13.28%. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $33.61 billion, up 9.32% from the year-ago period.
Looking at the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates suggest analysts are expecting earnings of $6.54 per share and revenue of $137.49 billion. These totals would mark changes of +8.64% and +4.52%, respectively, from last year.
Any recent changes to analyst estimates for WBA should also be noted by investors. These recent revisions tend to reflect the evolving nature of short-term business trends. As a result, we can interpret positive estimate revisions as a good sign for the company's business outlook.
Based on our research, we believe these estimate revisions are directly related to near-team stock moves. To benefit from this, we have developed the Zacks Rank, a proprietary model which takes these estimate changes into account and provides an actionable rating system.
Ranging from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), the Zacks Rank system has a proven, outside-audited track record of outperformance, with #1 stocks returning an average of +25% annually since 1988. The Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 0.03% higher within the past month. WBA is currently a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).
In terms of valuation, WBA is currently trading at a Forward P/E ratio of 12.98. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 12.98, which means WBA is trading at a no noticeable deviation to the group.
Also, we should mention that WBA has a PEG ratio of 1.32. The PEG ratio is similar to the widely-used P/E ratio, but this metric also takes the company's expected earnings growth rate into account. The Retail - Pharmacies and Drug Stores industry currently had an average PEG ratio of 1.15 as of yesterday's close.
The Retail - Pharmacies and Drug Stores industry is part of the Retail-Wholesale sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 37, which puts it in the top 14% of all 250+ industries.
The Zacks Industry Rank gauges the strength of our individual industry groups by measuring the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks within the groups. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.
You can find more information on all of these metrics, and much more, on Zacks.com.
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Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. (WBA) : Free Stock Analysis Report
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