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Pastimes : Home on the range where the buffalo roam -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Venkie who wrote (9571)	10/30/2002 11:10:04 AM
From: Sig	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13815

All instruments coming up into the green now except ally might be a bit low-down 0.09: Dell's coming back up to 29, 29.05, 29.10, 29.20, 29.25, 29.30 Brakes off. . Were ready as ever.Yahoooooooooooooooooooooo sscnet.ucla.edu

To: Venkie who wrote (9571)	10/31/2002 2:26:48 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 13815

Strong Growth Lifts Whole Foods By BOB SECHLER Dow Jones Newswires Oct 31, 1:09 AM EST AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- Whole Foods Market Inc. has been consistently serving up savory financial numbers amid an economy more notable for turning stomachs. But with shares of the chain of natural and gourmet food stores already relatively richly valued and up about 8 percent this year based on Wednesday's close at $47.81 - compared with a 23 percent slide for the S&P 500 Index - some on Wall Street are wondering if investors have gotten their fill. "You just have to ask, who is going to jump in here at this valuation and get excited?" said Lehman Brothers analyst Meredith Adler, echoing a common concern. Adler, who has a "market-weight" rating on Whole Foods, doesn't own stock in the company, and her firm doesn't have an investment-banking relationship with it. Shares of Whole Foods, the top player amid the booming natural-foods retailing sector, have been trading at about 28 times the company's projected earnings next year, a valuation that far outpaces that of more traditional major grocery chains. While observers may question how much higher Whole Foods' shares can climb, they don't dispute that the stock warrants a premium relative to peers. The company has seen sales at stores open more than one year grow around 10 percent a year. Since it has also opened more stores, its overall revenue has been growing at about a 20 percent annually. Whole Foods, slated to report results Nov. 19 for its fiscal fourth quarter that ended Sept. 29, has forecast overall sales growing 17 percent to 22 percent for the quarter. Wall Street expects the company's fourth-quarter earnings to come in at 34 cents a share on revenue of $635 million, according to Thomson First Call, compared with 29 cents a share on $577 million a year ago. The strong showing amid the uncertain economy has been attributed in part to exceptional execution and brand identity on the part of Whole Foods, which operates stores that exude a sort of hip healthiness through an appealing combination of natural foods and gourmet offerings. Whole Foods also has benefitted by being at the vanguard of an overall "wellness" trend, or health-consciousness, among consumers that has turned natural-foods retailing, a one-time niche market, into the fastest-growing segment of U.S. food sales. New federal guidelines for organic food labeling, which went into effect Oct. 21, are also expected to provide a minor boost to that overall trend. Still, even analysts who are bullish on Whole Foods acknowledge that the price of its stock has become a primary consideration for investors. For its part, Whole Foods has shown little sign of being content to rest on its laurels: It has an aggressive plan to add about 260 new stores - from about 137 now - by the end of the decade. The company, in the process of building a new Austin, Texas headquarters to oversee the expansion, also is experimenting with a larger store size. "We see the opportunity there, and we're going to do our darndest to execute," said Walter Robb, the company's executive vice president for operations. "Whole Foods fundamentally is still a growth story." Still, Whole Foods is far from alone in targeting the untapped potential, not to mention high margins, of natural-foods retailing, and competition is expected to get more intense. Some generalist grocers, such as Kroger, have been adding "natural foods" sections to their stores, while others simply have been beefing up organic and gourmet offerings. In addition, there's no guarantee copycat regional players won't emerge with Whole Foods-like formats. Robb said that Whole Foods is currently in only 31 of the top 50 U.S. metropolitan areas, meaning the company has ample room to expand without "cannibalizing ourselves." -- On the Web: wholefoodsmarket.com