Walgreens Boots Alliance (NASDAQ:WBA) Posts Quarterly Earnings Results, Beats Expectations By $0.04 EPS

Walgreens Boots Alliance (NASDAQ:WBA) announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday. The pharmacy operator reported $0.38 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.34 by $0.04, Zacks reports. Walgreens Boots Alliance had a negative net margin of 3.80% and a positive return on equity of 16.39%.

Walgreens Boots Alliance Trading Down 0.4%

Shares of NASDAQ:WBA opened at $11.31 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.92, a quick ratio of 0.32 and a current ratio of 0.61. Walgreens Boots Alliance has a 52-week low of $8.08 and a 52-week high of $15.83. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $11.19 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $10.80. The stock has a market capitalization of $9.79 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -1.69, a PEG ratio of 1.37 and a beta of 0.78.

Insider Transactions at Walgreens Boots Alliance

In other news, Chairman Stefano Pessina acquired 832,258 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Sunday, April 27th. The shares were acquired at an average price of $11.01 per share, for a total transaction of $9,163,160.58. Following the completion of the transaction, the chairman now directly owns 145,621,079 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,603,288,079.79. The trade was a 0.57% increase in their position. The acquisition was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Insiders own 17.50% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A hedge fund recently raised its stake in Walgreens Boots Alliance stock. Empowered Funds LLC increased its position in Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. (NASDAQ:WBA) by 93.0% during the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 50,349 shares of the pharmacy operator’s stock after purchasing an additional 24,265 shares during the quarter. Empowered Funds LLC’s holdings in Walgreens Boots Alliance were worth $562,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 58.59% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

WBA has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. UBS Group reiterated a “neutral” rating on shares of Walgreens Boots Alliance in a research note on Thursday. Morgan Stanley reiterated an “underweight” rating on shares of Walgreens Boots Alliance in a research report on Thursday. Wall Street Zen initiated coverage on Walgreens Boots Alliance in a report on Wednesday, May 21st. They set a “hold” rating for the company. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft cut Walgreens Boots Alliance from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating and lowered their price target for the company from $11.00 to $9.00 in a report on Friday, February 28th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Walgreens Boots Alliance has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $10.59.

Walgreens Boots Alliance Company Profile

Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc operates as a healthcare, pharmacy, and retail company in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and internationally. It operates through three segments: U.S. Retail Pharmacy, International, and U.S. Healthcare. The U.S. Retail Pharmacy segment engages in operation of the retail drugstores, health and wellness services, specialty, and home delivery pharmacy services, which offers health and wellness, beauty, personal care and consumables, and general merchandise.