Retail

What to Expect When Walgreens Reports Tuesday Morning

Chris Lange

Published: April 1, 2019 10:55 am

Last Updated: January 6, 2020 5:49 am

Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. (NASDAQ: WBA) is scheduled to release its fiscal second-quarter financial results before the markets open on Tuesday. The consensus estimates call for $1.74 in earnings per share (EPS) and $34.62 billion in revenue. The same period of last year reportedly had $1.73 in EPS and $33.02 billion in revenue.

In the most recent quarter, the Retail Pharmacy USA segment had sales of $25.7 billion, an increase of 14.4% over the year-ago quarter. Retail Pharmacy International had first-quarter sales of $2.9 billion, a decrease of 5.9% from the year-ago quarter, reflecting an adverse currency impact of 2.3%.

At that time, Walgreens delivered double-digit percentage growth in earnings per share, including solid results in the United States.

During the first quarter, the company made good progress on partnerships, including advancing its collaborations with Kroger, FedEx and Humana. Walgreens also announced an initiative with Verily to further expand its health care offering.

The firm reaffirmed its fiscal 2019 guidance and announced the launch of a new transformational cost management program, which is targeting annual cost savings of more than $1 billion by the end of the third year.

Excluding Monday’s move, Walgreens had underperformed the broad markets, with the stock down 7% year to date. In the past 52 weeks, the stock was down only 6%.

A few analysts weighed in on Walgreens ahead of the report:

• Cowen has a Hold rating and a $66 price target.
• Mizuho has a Hold rating with a $67 target price.
• Loop Capital has a Buy rating with a $77 target price.
• Merrill Lynch has an Underperform rating and a $62 price target.
• Morgan Stanley has an Equal Weight rating with a $67 target.

Shares of Walgreens were last seen up about 1% at $63.88, with a 52-week range of $59.07 to $86.31. The stock has a consensus analyst price target of $74.09.