CVS vs. WBA, GRDN, PETS, YI, CJJD, UNH, NVS, ABT, AZN, and ISRG
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), UnitedHealth Group (UNH), Novartis (NVS), Abbott Laboratories (ABT), AstraZeneca (AZN), and Intuitive Surgical (ISRG).
CVS Health vs.
CVS Health (NYSE:CVS) and Walgreens Boots Alliance (NASDAQ:WBA) are both medical companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their media sentiment, valuation, earnings, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, dividends, community ranking, profitability and risk.
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 42 mentions for CVS Health and 9 mentions for Walgreens Boots Alliance. Walgreens Boots Alliance's average media sentiment score of 1.39 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 currently has a consensus price target of $75.07, suggesting a potential upside of 16.84%. Walgreens Boots Alliance has a consensus price target of $10.59, suggesting a potential downside of 6.65%. Given CVS Health's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly 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.
CVS Health pays an annual dividend of $2.66 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.1%. Walgreens Boots Alliance pays an annual dividend of $1.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 8.8%. CVS Health pays out 63.5% 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. CVS Health has increased its dividend for 4 consecutive years. Walgreens Boots Alliance is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.
CVS Health received 279 more outperform votes than Walgreens Boots Alliance when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 75.58% of users gave CVS Health an outperform vote while only 64.83% of users gave Walgreens Boots Alliance an outperform vote.
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 large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
CVS Health has a beta of 0.56, meaning that its share price is 44% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Walgreens Boots Alliance has a beta of 0.78, meaning that its share price is 22% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Summary
CVS Health beats Walgreens Boots Alliance on 15 of the 22 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 6/11/2025 by MarketBeat.com Staff
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