Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) closed the latest trading day at $9.73, indicating a -1.12% change from the previous session's end. The stock's change was less than the S&P 500's daily loss of 0.54%. At the same time, the Dow lost 0.53%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 0.66%.
The largest U.S. drugstore chain's shares have seen an increase of 8.97% over the last month, surpassing the Retail-Wholesale sector's gain of 6.47% and the S&P 500's gain of 1.5%.
The investment community will be closely monitoring the performance of Walgreens Boots Alliance in its forthcoming earnings report. The company is scheduled to release its earnings on January 9, 2025. In that report, analysts expect Walgreens Boots Alliance to post earnings of $0.39 per share. This would mark a year-over-year decline of 40.91%. Meanwhile, the latest consensus estimate predicts the revenue to be $37.2 billion, indicating a 1.35% increase compared to the same quarter of the previous year.
For the full year, the Zacks Consensus Estimates project earnings of $1.53 per share and a revenue of $149.06 billion, demonstrating changes of -46.88% and +0.95%, respectively, from the preceding year.
Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for Walgreens Boots Alliance. These latest adjustments often mirror the shifting dynamics of short-term business patterns. As a result, upbeat changes in estimates indicate analysts' favorable outlook on the company's business health and profitability.
Empirical research indicates that these revisions in estimates have a direct correlation with impending stock price performance. We developed the Zacks Rank to capitalize on this phenomenon. Our system takes these estimate changes into account and delivers a clear, actionable rating model.
The Zacks Rank system, ranging from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), possesses a remarkable history of outdoing, externally audited, with #1 stocks returning an average annual gain of +25% since 1988. The Zacks Consensus EPS estimate remained stagnant within the past month. As of now, Walgreens Boots Alliance holds a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).
From a valuation perspective, Walgreens Boots Alliance is currently exchanging hands at a Forward P/E ratio of 6.45. This signifies no noticeable deviation in comparison to the average Forward P/E of 6.45 for its industry.
Meanwhile, WBA's PEG ratio is currently 1.29. The PEG ratio bears resemblance to the frequently used P/E ratio, but this parameter also includes the company's expected earnings growth trajectory. As the market closed yesterday, the Retail - Pharmacies and Drug Stores industry was having an average PEG ratio of 0.89.
The Retail - Pharmacies and Drug Stores industry is part of the Retail-Wholesale sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 224, putting it in the bottom 11% of all 250+ industries.
The Zacks Industry Rank assesses the strength of our separate industry groups by calculating the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks contained within the groups. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.
Be sure to use Zacks.com to monitor all these stock-influencing metrics, and more, throughout the forthcoming trading sessions.
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