Pharmacy Stocks Slammed On Signs They May Be Next To Get “Amazon’d”

Pharma stocks tumbled to their lows of the session Thursday afternoon after a double whammy of Trump declaring all out war on the opioid epidemic, but more importantly, the St. Louis Dispatch reporting that Amazon has been quietly acquiring pharmacy licenses in 12 states, suggesting Jeff Bezos is gearing up for a battle with the handful of massive pharmacy owners and benefit managers that dominate the US market.
While Reuters initially cited Trump’s remark that the federal government might bring “major lawsuits” against “bad actors” like the pharmaceutical companies who market and sell opioids (a group of state attorneys general are already pursuing litigation that legal experts suspect could lead to a Big Tobacco-style settlement) as the catalyst for the selloff, the Amazon report emerged as the true trigger of for the “Bezos disruption”-driven plunge in shares of Walgreens Boots Alliance, CVS and several of their peers.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on Oct 26, 2017.