Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) stock fell hard on Tuesday, as a couple of headwinds are weighing on the pharmacy company’s shares. The first is a lawsuit from the Department of Justice (DOJ) concerning Walgreens’ contribution to drug abuse. The DOJ accused the pharmacy chain of illegally filling prescriptions for controlled substances. Even worse, the agency claims Walgreens knew it wasn’t supposed to do this.
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According to the DOJ, Walgreens started this practice in August 2012 when it forced pharmacists to speed up order fulfillment in the name of efficiency. This led to prescriptions not being properly checked before being handed to customers. Making matters worse, the DOJ alleged Walgreens sought compensation for these prescriptions through government healthcare programs.
2025 Walgreens Store Closures Start
Also hindering Walgreens stock today are 2025 store closures starting this week. This begins plans for more than 450 locations to shut down this year. While this news was first announced in October 2024, the start of the closures has reignited negative momentum for WBA stock.
Looking at that, the headwinds facing Walgreens dropped its shares 9.19% on Tuesday. That builds on the negative movement that started Friday when the DOJ lawsuit news broke. This has WBA shares down 12.87% over the last five days and dropping 45.52% over the past year. It’s also slipped 0.53% in pre-market trading today.
Fueling the negative WBA stock movement is heavy trading as investors sell the company’s shares. That saw 50.85 million units change hands yesterday compared to a three-month daily average of 28.07 million shares.
Is WBA Stock a Buy, Sell, or Hold?
Turning to Wall Street, the analysts’ consensus rating for Walgreens Boots Alliance is Hold based on two Buy, seven Hold, and two Sell ratings over the last three months. With that comes an average price target of $11.44, a high of $15, and a low of $7. This represents a potential 0.62% upside for WBA shares.
