Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:WBA) Financials Are Too Obscure To Link With Current Share Price Momentum: What's In Store For the Stock?

Walgreens Boots Alliance’s ROE in this article.” data-reactid=”28″>Walgreens Boots Alliance’s (NASDAQ:WBA) stock up by 5.4% over the past three months. Given that the stock prices usually follow long-term business performance, we wonder if the company’s mixed financials could have any adverse effect on its current price price movement Specifically, we decided to study Walgreens Boots Alliance’s ROE in this article.

ROE or return on equity is a useful tool to assess how effectively a company can generate returns on the investment it received from its shareholders. In short, ROE shows the profit each dollar generates with respect to its shareholder investments.

View our latest analysis for Walgreens Boots Alliance ” data-reactid=”30″>View our latest analysis for Walgreens Boots Alliance

How Is ROE Calculated?

Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) ÷ Shareholders’ Equity

So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Walgreens Boots Alliance is:

3.5% = US$753m ÷ US$21b (Based on the trailing twelve months to May 2020).

The ‘return’ refers to a company’s earnings over the last year. That means that for every $1 worth of shareholders’ equity, the company generated $0.04 in profit.

What Has ROE Got To Do With Earnings Growth?

So far, we’ve learned that ROE is a measure of a company’s profitability. Depending on how much of these profits the company reinvests or “retains”, and how effectively it does so, we are then able to assess a company’s earnings growth potential. Generally speaking, other things being equal, firms with a high return on equity and profit retention, have a higher growth rate than firms that don’t share these attributes.

Walgreens Boots Alliance’s Earnings Growth And 3.5% ROE

It is hard to argue that Walgreens Boots Alliance’s ROE is much good in and of itself. Even compared to the average industry ROE of 10.0%, the company’s ROE is quite dismal. For this reason, Walgreens Boots Alliance’s five year net income decline of 2.4% is not surprising given its lower ROE. We reckon that there could also be other factors at play here. For instance, the company has a very high payout ratio, or is faced with competitive pressures.

That being said, we compared Walgreens Boots Alliance’s performance with the industry and were concerned when we found that while the company has shrunk its earnings, the industry has grown its earnings at a rate of 5.2% in the same period.

check if Walgreens Boots Alliance is trading on a high P/E or a low P/E, relative to its industry.” data-reactid=”58″>Earnings growth is a huge factor in stock valuation. What investors need to determine next is if the expected earnings growth, or the lack of it, is already built into the share price. This then helps them determine if the stock is placed for a bright or bleak future. One good indicator of expected earnings growth is the P/E ratio which determines the price the market is willing to pay for a stock based on its earnings prospects. So, you may want to check if Walgreens Boots Alliance is trading on a high P/E or a low P/E, relative to its industry.

Is Walgreens Boots Alliance Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

Looking at its three-year median payout ratio of 39% (or a retention ratio of 61%) which is pretty normal, Walgreens Boots Alliance’s declining earnings is rather baffling as one would expect to see a fair bit of growth when a company is retaining a good portion of its profits. It looks like there might be some other reasons to explain the lack in that respect. For example, the business could be in decline.