Shares of Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. WBA fell 2.32% to $62.02 in pre-market trading on Tuesday, after the company released disappointing results for its second fiscal quarter of 2019 resulting from negative macro trends and challenging U.S. and U.K. markets.
Based in Deerfield, Illinois, the pharmaceutical retailer reported a 5.2% year-over-year decrease in non-GAAP earnings of $1.64 per share, missing expectations by 8 cents. GAAP earnings were $1.24 per share in the quarter, reflecting a nearly 9% decline.
Revenue was $34.53 billion, which was 4.6% growth year-over-year, missing consensus estimates by $40 million.
Second-quarter revenues were contributed from the following business segments: retail pharmacy U.S. sales jumped 7.3% to $26.26 billion, retail pharmacy international declined 7.1% to $3.08 billion and pharmaceutical wholesale slid 0.3% to $5.74 billion.
Other important numberswere a 23.3% decrease in operating income to $1.5 billion and a 10.4% decrease in adjusted operating income to $1.9 billion. Walgreens Boots Alliance also noted a 67% fall in net operating cash flow to $735 million and 79% drop in free cash flow to $411 million.
Looking ahead to full fiscal 2019, Walgreens Boots Alliance expects flat earnings growth at constant currency rates.
The share price of Walgreens Boots Alliance was around $63.5 at close on Monday following a 1% increase for the 52 weeks through April 1. The share price is abundantly below the 200-, 100- and 50-day simple moving average lines. The 52-week range is $59.07 to $86.31 and the market capitalization is roughly $95.9 billion.
The 14-day Relative Strength Indicator of 45.48 suggests the stock is neither oversold nor overbought.
Wall Street issued a hold recommendation rating with an average target price of $76.62 per share of Walgreens Boots Alliance.
Disclosure: I have no positions in any security mentioned.
