Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) Stock Moves -0.81%: What You Should Know

Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) closed the most recent trading day at $51.45, moving -0.81% from the previous trading session. This change was narrower than the S&P 500's 1.05% loss on the day. Elsewhere, the Dow lost 0.78%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 1.79%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the largest U.S. drugstore chain had lost 2.68% over the past month. This has lagged the Retail-Wholesale sector's gain of 4.07% and the S&P 500's gain of 1.5% in that time.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from WBA as it approaches its next earnings report date. On that day, WBA is projected to report earnings of $1.47 per share, which would represent a year-over-year decline of 10.37%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $35.30 billion, up 2.23% from the year-ago period.

WBA's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $5.86 per share and revenue of $139.90 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of -2.17% and +2.21%, respectively.

Any recent changes to analyst estimates for WBA should also be noted by investors. Recent revisions tend to reflect the latest near-term business trends. As a result, we can interpret positive estimate revisions as a good sign for the company's business outlook.

Research indicates that these estimate revisions are directly correlated with near-term share price momentum. Investors can capitalize on this by using the Zacks Rank. This model considers these estimate changes and provides a simple, 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. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 0.17% lower. WBA is currently a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).

Valuation is also important, so investors should note that WBA has a Forward P/E ratio of 8.85 right now. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 10.08, which means WBA is trading at a discount to the group.

It is also worth noting that WBA currently has a PEG ratio of 1.35. This popular metric is similar to the widely-known P/E ratio, with the difference being that the PEG ratio also takes into account the company's expected earnings growth rate. Retail - Pharmacies and Drug Stores stocks are, on average, holding a PEG ratio of 1.35 based on yesterday's closing prices.

The Retail - Pharmacies and Drug Stores industry is part of the Retail-Wholesale sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 106, which puts it in the top 42% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank includes is listed in order from best to worst in terms of the average Zacks Rank of the individual companies within each of these sectors. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.

Make sure to utilize Zacks. Com to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and more, in the coming trading sessions.


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