Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. operates as a pharmacy-led health and beauty retail company. It operates through two segments, the United States and International. The United States segment sells prescription drugs and an assortment of retail products, including health, wellness, beauty, personal care, consumable, and general merchandise products through its retail drugstores. It also provides central specialty pharmacy services and mail services. As of August 31, 2021, this segment operated 8,965 retail stores under the Walgreens and Duane Reade brands in the United States; and five specialty pharmacies. The International segment sells prescription drugs; and health and wellness, beauty, personal care, and other consumer products through its pharmacy-led health and beauty retail stores and optical practices, as well as through boots.com and an integrated mobile application. It also engages in pharmaceutical wholesaling and distribution business in Germany. As of August 31, 2021, this segment operated 4,031 retail stores under the Boots, Benavides, and Ahumada in the United Kingdom, Thailand, Norway, the Republic of Ireland, the Netherlands, Mexico, and Chile; and 548 optical practices, including 160 on a franchise basis. Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. was founded in 1901 and is based in Deerfield, Illinois.
Walgreens Boots Alliance Stock Performance
Shares of NASDAQ:WBA traded up $0.71 during midday trading on Tuesday, hitting $41.78. The company's stock had a trading volume of 160,257 shares, compared to its average volume of 5,432,361. The stock has a market capitalization of $36.11 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 6.62, a PEG ratio of 1.62 and a beta of 0.60. The stock's 50 day simple moving average is $39.51 and its 200 day simple moving average is $43.53. Walgreens Boots Alliance has a fifty-two week low of $36.57 and a fifty-two week high of $55.00. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.35, a quick ratio of 0.43 and a current ratio of 0.78.
Walgreens Boots Alliance (NASDAQ:WBA - Get Rating) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, June 30th. The pharmacy operator reported $0.96 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.95 by $0.01. Walgreens Boots Alliance had a return on equity of 16.20% and a net margin of 4.00%. The company had revenue of $32.60 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $32.23 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $1.51 earnings per share. The firm's revenue was down 4.2% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Walgreens Boots Alliance will post 5.02 earnings per share for the current year.
Walgreens Boots Alliance Increases Dividend
The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, September 9th. Investors of record on Friday, August 19th will be given a dividend of $0.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, August 18th. This is an increase from Walgreens Boots Alliance's previous quarterly dividend of $0.48. This represents a $1.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 4.60%. Walgreens Boots Alliance's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 30.81%.
Analyst Ratings Changes
WBA has been the subject of several research reports. StockNews.com raised Walgreens Boots Alliance from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 10th. Morgan Stanley decreased their target price on Walgreens Boots Alliance from $43.00 to $39.00 and set an "underweight" rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, July 6th. Barclays decreased their target price on Walgreens Boots Alliance from $50.00 to $45.00 and set an "equal weight" rating for the company in a research report on Friday, June 24th. TheStreet cut Walgreens Boots Alliance from a "b-" rating to a "c+" rating in a research report on Monday, May 2nd. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their target price on Walgreens Boots Alliance from $52.00 to $45.00 and set a "neutral" rating for the company in a research report on Friday, July 8th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have issued a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of "Hold" and an average price target of $46.25.