Inderpal Bhandari, a director at Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA), recently added 3,000 shares. The buy is a new stake for the director, and came to a total cost of $54,150. The buy comes a few weeks after the company’s Global CFO picked up 6,000 shares for $116,280.
Going further back, company insiders have generally been more likely to be buyers than sellers. A few sales have come following the exercise of stock options.
Overall, Walgreens insiders own 17.4% of shares.
The drugstore chain has seen shares get cut in half over the past year. Profitability has remained elusive, although operations have started to turn around in the most recent quarter.
Walgreens now trades at 6 times forward earnings, and shares trade at about 0.1 times their price to sales, a steep discount to retail operations in general.
Action to take: The stock has been trending lower over the past year, and hasn’t shown signs of a turnaround yet. Interested investors should wait for the downtrend to end before building a position.
At current prices, Walgreens pays a 5.7% dividend, but may have a higher starting yield for patient investors.
For traders, the June $17.50 puts, last trading for about $1.05, could see mid-double-digit gains in the coming weeks on a continued decline in shares.
Disclosure: The author of this article has no position in the company mentioned here, but may trade after the next 72 hours. The author receives no compensation from any company mentioned in this article.