CVS vs. WBA, GRDN, PETS, YI, CJJD, NVO, NVS, ABT, AZN, and MRK
Should you be buying CVS Health stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of CVS Health include Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA), Guardian Pharmacy Services (GRDN), PetMed Express (PETS), 111 (YI), China Jo-Jo Drugstores (CJJD), Novo Nordisk A/S (NVO), Novartis (NVS), Abbott Laboratories (ABT), AstraZeneca (AZN), and Merck & Co., Inc. (MRK).
CVS Health vs.
CVS Health (NYSE:CVS) and Walgreens Boots Alliance (NASDAQ:WBA) are both medical companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, community ranking, risk, earnings, profitability, media sentiment, institutional ownership, dividends and analyst recommendations.
CVS Health has a net margin of 1.24% compared to Walgreens Boots Alliance's net margin of -5.87%. Walgreens Boots Alliance's return on equity of 17.61% beat CVS Health's return on equity.
In the previous week, CVS Health had 33 more articles in the media than Walgreens Boots Alliance. MarketBeat recorded 48 mentions for CVS Health and 15 mentions for Walgreens Boots Alliance. Walgreens Boots Alliance's average media sentiment score of 1.47 beat CVS Health's score of 0.98 indicating that Walgreens Boots Alliance is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
CVS Health has a beta of 0.57, meaning that its share price is 43% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Walgreens Boots Alliance has a beta of 0.67, meaning that its share price is 33% less volatile than the S&P 500.
CVS Health currently has a consensus target price of $71.94, suggesting a potential upside of 7.94%. Walgreens Boots Alliance has a consensus target price of $10.59, suggesting a potential downside of 3.46%. Given CVS Health's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, research analysts clearly believe CVS Health is more favorable than Walgreens Boots Alliance.
CVS Health has higher revenue and earnings than Walgreens Boots Alliance. Walgreens Boots Alliance is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than CVS Health, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
80.7% of CVS Health shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 58.6% of Walgreens Boots Alliance shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.2% of CVS Health shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 17.5% of Walgreens Boots Alliance shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.
CVS Health pays an annual dividend of $2.66 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.0%. Walgreens Boots Alliance pays an annual dividend of $1.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 9.1%. CVS Health pays out 72.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Walgreens Boots Alliance pays out -14.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. Walgreens Boots Alliance is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.
CVS Health received 272 more outperform votes than Walgreens Boots Alliance when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 75.53% of users gave CVS Health an outperform vote while only 64.94% of users gave Walgreens Boots Alliance an outperform vote.
Summary
CVS Health beats Walgreens Boots Alliance on 14 of the 21 factors compared between the two stocks.
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New MarketBeat Followers Over Time
This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding {thisCompany.Symbol} and its top 5 competitors to their watchlist. Each company is represented with a line over a 90 day period.
Media Sentiment Over Time
This chart shows the average media sentiment of NYSE and its competitors over the past 90 days as caculated by MarketBeat. The averaged score is equivalent to the following: Very Negative Sentiment <= -1.5, Negative Sentiment > -1.5 and <= -0.5, Neutral Sentiment > -0.5 and < 0.5, Positive Sentiment >= 0.5 and < 1.5, and Very Positive Sentiment >= 1.5.
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This page (NYSE:CVS) was last updated on 5/1/2025 by MarketBeat.com Staff
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