Free Annual Reports
Walgreen First Quarter Earnings Preview
Tickers in this Article »
WAG
On Friday, December 21, 2012, Walgreen (NYSE:WAG) will announce its first quarter earnings. The consensus analyst estimate has dropped from 70 cents a share to the current estimate of earnings of 67 cents a share.
Investors care about earnings because they drive stock prices. Strong earnings generally result in the stock price moving up and vice versa. SEE: How To Decode A Company's Earnings Reports
What to Expect: Walgreen is expected to report 67 cents per share, up 6.3% from a year ago when the company reported earnings of 63 cents per share.
For the fiscal year, analysts are projecting earnings of $3.21 per share.
Revenue for the quarter is expected to be $17.5 billion, short of last year's reported figure of $18.16 billion by 3.6%. Revenue for the fiscal year is expected to come in at $73.74 billion.
Company Performance: Revenue has declined 0.7% year-over-year on average over the last four quarters. The most recent quarter marked the biggest decline of 5% from the year-earlier quarter.
P/E ratio for WAG is 15.2. One of the most important estimates of stock market valuation is the price/earnings ratio (P/E ratio). From the investor's perspective, a stock with a lower ratio is relatively cheaper than a stock with a higher ratio. SEE: Can Investors Trust the P/E Ratio?
The Competition: Walgreen operates a chain of retail drug stores. Nine of 17 analysts rate Walgreen a hold. In the last three months, the number of buy ratings has increased slightly.
The company's closest competitor in the retail (drugs) industry is CVS (CVS). Analysts are less optimistic about Walgreen than about CVS. Seventeen out of 18 analysts rate the latter a buy compared to seven of 17 for the former.
Investors care about earnings because they drive stock prices. Strong earnings generally result in the stock price moving up and vice versa. SEE: How To Decode A Company's Earnings Reports
What to Expect: Walgreen is expected to report 67 cents per share, up 6.3% from a year ago when the company reported earnings of 63 cents per share.
For the fiscal year, analysts are projecting earnings of $3.21 per share.
Revenue for the quarter is expected to be $17.5 billion, short of last year's reported figure of $18.16 billion by 3.6%. Revenue for the fiscal year is expected to come in at $73.74 billion.
P/E ratio for WAG is 15.2. One of the most important estimates of stock market valuation is the price/earnings ratio (P/E ratio). From the investor's perspective, a stock with a lower ratio is relatively cheaper than a stock with a higher ratio. SEE: Can Investors Trust the P/E Ratio?
The Competition: Walgreen operates a chain of retail drug stores. Nine of 17 analysts rate Walgreen a hold. In the last three months, the number of buy ratings has increased slightly.
The company's closest competitor in the retail (drugs) industry is CVS (CVS). Analysts are less optimistic about Walgreen than about CVS. Seventeen out of 18 analysts rate the latter a buy compared to seven of 17 for the former.
by
Investopedia Staff
Investopedia.com believes that individuals can excel at managing their financial affairs. As such, we strive to provide free educational content and tools to empower individual investors, including thousands of original and objective articles and tutorials on a wide variety of financial topics.
Free Annual Reports
