Shares of Walgreens Boots Alliance (NASDAQ:WBA) Inc. rallied today, following a bullish outlook by J.P. Morgan. Analyst Lisa Gill upgraded the stock to overweight and raised her price target to $30, which represents a 41% upside from last Friday's close of $21.26. This optimistic outlook is largely driven by the potential of incoming CEO Tim Wentworth to tackle ongoing challenges affecting the company's stock.
InvestingPro data reveals that Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. has a market cap of 18.37B USD and has been experiencing revenue growth of 4.81%. Despite a challenging year for the company, its revenue for the last twelve months (LTM2023.Q4) stands at 139.08B USD.
The stock has had a challenging year, marked by missed earnings, high costs, and sluggish growth in its healthcare business, which led it to hit a 25-year low. Gill expects improvement under the leadership of Wentworth, who was formerly the CEO of Cigna (NYSE:CI) Group’s Evernorth.
InvestingPro Tips suggests that the company, a prominent player in the Consumer Staples Distribution and retail industry, has been maintaining its dividend payments for 53 consecutive years, which is likely to be a significant factor for investors. The company's dividend yield as of Y2023.D296 is 9.03%.
Today's rally saw the stock outpace the DJIA and SPX in premarket trading post-announcement. This comes after a year-to-date plunge of 43.1% and a three-month tumble of 30.2%, making it the worst-performing Dow component. According to InvestingPro's real-time metrics, the company's stock has fallen by 40.41% year-to-date, and by 28.95% over the last three months.
Wentworth is set to succeed Rosalind Brewer, who resigned on September 1st. Despite the recent rally, only four out of 16 FactSet analysts covering Walgreens maintain a bullish perspective on the stock. However, InvestingPro Tips indicates that net income is expected to grow this year, and analysts predict that the company will be profitable. For more insights like these, consider checking out the additional tips available on InvestingPro.
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