Posted Jun 27th 2009 9:40AM by Trey Thoelcke
Filed under: Earnings reports, Walgreen Co (WAG), Bed Bath and Beyond (BBBY), Kroger Co (KR), ConAgra Foods (CAG), Darden Restaurants (DRI), NIKE, Inc'B' (NKE), KB HOME (KBH), Lennar Corp'A' (LEN), Oracle Corp (ORCL), Red Hat Inc (RHT), CKE Restaurants (CKR), Rite Aid Corp (RAD), Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan (POT)
Here are some highlights from this past week's earnings coverage from BloggingStocks:
Continue reading Earnings highlights: Nike, Oracle, Kroger, Walgreen, Monsanto, KB Home ...
Posted Jun 25th 2009 9:00AM by Steven Mallas
Filed under: Earnings reports, Wal-Mart (WMT), Walgreen Co (WAG), CVS Corp (CVS), Rite Aid Corp (RAD)
Rite Aid (NYSE: RAD), which competes with Walgreen (NYSE: WAG), CVS Caremark (NYSE: CVS), and Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT), saw a big increase in volume on Wednesday after it reported earnings for the first quarter. In fact, as Douglas McIntyre observed, shares of Rite Aid were up 5% at one point during yesterday's session. However, the shares ended up losing their green status by the close of trading. Rite Aid actually lost 3% when all was said and done. What does it all mean?
Well, Rite Aid did beat analyst forecasts by a wide margin. The call was for a loss of 13 cents per share. Rite Aid lost only 6 cents per share once adjustments are made. Revenues dipped a little over 1%, and same-store sales, after excluding the effect of the Brooks Eckerd acquisition, increased 1.5%. Interestingly, the mix of this increase is as follows: the pharmacy sales went up 3.1% on a comparable basis, and the non-pharmacy sales went down 1.4% on the same basis.
Continue reading Rite Aid beats analysts, but not right for me yet
Posted Jun 22nd 2009 4:40PM by James Cullen
Filed under: Earnings reports, Walgreen Co (WAG)
A down day for the market and an earnings release that left nothing to be excited about hurt shares of Walgreen Company (NYSE: WAG) today, with shares off more than 6% heading into the close. The drugstore chain, with more than 7,000 locations, reported earnings of 53 cents per share; analysts expected 56 cents on average with a low of 54 cents. Earnings in the same quarter the year before amounted to 58 cents per share.
Sales for the quarter were up 8% overall, with comparable store sales growth up 2.8%. This was largely driven by increased sales of prescription drugs in the quarter, which were up 8.2% to comprise more than 65% of revenues.
Continue reading Walgreens sells off on earnings
Posted Jun 21st 2009 12:30PM by Trey Thoelcke
Filed under: Earnings reports, Forecasts, Walgreen Co (WAG), Darden Restaurants (DRI), NIKE, Inc'B' (NKE), KB HOME (KBH), Oracle Corp (ORCL), Economic data
Continue reading The week in preview: End-of-quarter earnings expectations: Nike, Oracle, Walgreen ...
Posted Jun 20th 2009 2:10PM by Steven Mallas
Filed under: Earnings reports, Forecasts, Walgreen Co (WAG), CVS Corp (CVS), Rite Aid Corp (RAD)
Walgreen (NYSE: WAG), a drugstore business that competes with CVS Caremark (NYSE: CVS) and Rite-Aid (NYSE: RAD), will be issuing results for the third quarter on Monday, June 22. According to Earnings.com, the analyst community is prescribing $0.56 per share for the company.
Of course, the question is: will Walgreen honor that prescription and fill it? I'd say it's quite possible. Last time around, Walgreen beat estimates. The call was for $0.66 per share in Q2. If you look at the press release from that time, you'll see that, once you adjust for some items, Walgreen went beyond expectations.
Continue reading Walgreen to report Q3 numbers: What should we look for?
Posted Apr 27th 2009 1:00PM by Melly Alazraki
Filed under: Walgreen Co (WAG), Novartis AG ADS (NVS), Baxter Intl (BAX), CVS Corp (CVS), Hormel Foods (HRL), Tyson Foods'A' (TSN), Smithfield Foods (SFD), Gilead Sciences (GILD), Agriculture
I remember Toronto during SARS. As one of the harder hit areas, it was not a happy place. It was the end of winter, but that miserable, cold winter just didn't want to end. People walked the streets in a gloomy haze, afraid to take the subway and giving dirty looks to anyone brazen enough to cough in public. Worse, I couldn't even visit a friend in the hospital. All things considered though, in global pandemic terms, it was over relatively quickly. Let's hope swine flu will be the same.
In the meantime, let's put on our investors hats and see what's in store for some stocks:
Travel and tourist stocksThis is one of the worst hit areas, especially airlines, as people may cancel their travel plans. For example,
AMR Corp. (NYSE:
AMR) traded over 9 percent lower an hour after the open.
Royal Caribbean Cruises (NYSE:
RCL) was down over 15 percent. In fact UBS downgraded these airlines and hotels this morning: AMR,
Continental Airlines (NYSE:
CAL),
Host Hotels and Resorts (NYSE:
HST),
Lasalle Hotel Properties (NYSE:
LHO),
Marriott (NYSE:
MAR),
United Airlines (NASDAQ:
UAUA),
US Airways (NYSE:
LCC).
Carnival Cruise Lines (NYSE:
CCL) also declined considerably. Best to stay away from the sector.
Continue reading Don't fear the swine flu . . . trade it
Posted Apr 20th 2009 10:30AM by Jim Cramer
Filed under: PepsiCo (PEP), Ford Motor (F), General Motors (GM), Market matters, Walgreen Co (WAG), Citigroup Inc. (C), Target Corp. (TGT), Brinker Intl (EAT), Penney (J.C.) (JCP), Abbott Laboratories (ABT), American Express (AXP), AutoNation Inc (AN), AutoZone Inc (AZO), Centex Corp (CTX), Charles Schwab Corp (SCHW), Kellogg Co (K), Hershey Co (HSY), Sears Holdings (SHLD), CVS Corp (CVS), Gap Inc (GPS), General Mills (GIS), Procter and Gamble (PG), Yum Brands (YUM), Kohl's Corp (KSS), Johnson Controls (JCI), Gilead Sciences (GILD), Nordstrom, Inc (JWN), Unilever ADR (UL), Jones Apparel Group (JNY), Cramer on BloggingStocks, Recession, E*TRADE (ETFC)
TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer is seeing signs of a coming boom, but he's still being cautious here. If you had to define the early cycle, if you had to outline what stocks should be soaring coming out of a recession into a boom and which ones should be faltering, you would have to say the action in this market in the last month is the quintessential behavioral pattern.
What are the components of the early cycle? First, it's the homebuilders. As is typical coming out of a recession, the stocks precede the bottom of housing. That's exactly what's happening with the lowest permits and highest affordability and best mortgage rates and massive inventory. Everywhere, except on Wall Street reporting, the bottom is bursting out. When you read the lead story in the Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer, and it is all about the thousands of prospective homebuyers heading south to pick up condos and homes for half of what they were worth two years ago -- or even less -- and you know that virtually no one has broken ground in the Sunshine State in a year, you can bet that the bottom's actually behind us. This housing market has wiped out all but the most stable private builders and even the public ones are merging as we know from
Pulte (NYSE:
PHM) (
Cramer's Take) and
Centex (NYSE:
CTX) (
Cramer's Take). So, in the next cycle, you can see some profitability developing year over year even though the new homes don't have much margin because the foreclosed homes next door are going for a song. And don't believe this won't change the dynamic of future foreclosures. In most areas, rent is higher than the interest on mortgages, so you will find that second or third job needed to stay in your home. The incentive structure's radically different than a year ago.
Continue reading Cramer on BloggingStocks: The seductive pull of the early cycle
Posted Mar 28th 2009 11:40AM by Trey Thoelcke
Filed under: Earnings reports, Walgreen Co (WAG), Best Buy (BBY), Carnival Corp (CCL), Tiffany and Co (TIF), ConAgra Foods (CAG), Research in Motion (RIMM), KB HOME (KBH)
Here are some highlights from this past week's earnings coverage from BloggingStocks:
Continue reading Earnings highlights: Best Buy, Walgreen, Tiffany, Research in Motion, KB Home and more
Posted Feb 23rd 2009 3:15PM by Zac Bissonnette
Filed under: Walgreen Co (WAG), Abbott Laboratories (ABT), Altria Group (MO), Kroger Co (KR), Kimberly-Clark (KMB), Nucor Corp (NUE), Books, Wells Fargo (WFC)
Back in 2001, Jim Collins had a monster of a business bestseller with his book
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap. . . and Others Don't. In it, Collins explored companies that have become hugely successful and found that success generally comes as a result of focusing resources on things that you're good at instead of mindlessly diversifying.
Arkansas Business writer Jeff Hankins read the book again to see how the companies profiled have weathered the downturn. The companies profiled were
Abbot Laboratories (NYSE:
ABT),
Kroger (NYSE:
KR),
Kimberly-Clark (NYSE:
KMB),
Walgreens (NYSE:
WAG),
Altria (NYSE:
MO),
Nucor (NYSE:
NUE),
Pitney Bowes (NYSE:
PBI),
Wells Fargo (NYSE:
WFC) and tragically, Fannie Mae and Circuit City. Gilette was eliminated from contention because of a merger.
Continue reading From Good to Great to Bankruptcy: Jim Collins' book revisited
Posted Feb 17th 2009 10:45AM by Joseph Lazzaro
Filed under: Walgreen Co (WAG), Stocks to Buy
Yes, you could call this a selective market: select the wrong stock, and there's a 30-40% haircut up ahead; select the correct stock, and you're positioned for the U.S. recovery with modest downside exposure.
Hence, the premium is on defensive plays, and
Walgreen (NYSE:
WAG) qualifies.
Consider Walgreen 'the defensive's defensive' because not only is it in a conservative sector (drug stores), Walgreen has resisted the urge to grow by acquisition. Instead, WAG has focused on the old-fashioned method of growth by opening new stores, and other methods (large penetrations into new markets, relocating stores, expanding 24-hour service to more stores). The tactic really hasn't hurt WAG's store count, with the chain operating about 6,500 stores in the U.S. as of October 2008.
Continue reading Walgreen (WAG) expands the old-fashioned way: carefully
Posted Feb 16th 2009 6:00PM by Beth Gaston Moon
Filed under: Walgreen Co (WAG), CVS Corp (CVS)
Economic times are tough, and people are skimping on pricey outings, gourmet meals, and new purchases. There's one activity, however, which is relatively free of charge, entertaining, and accessible in one's own home. Perhaps the word "recession" is an aphrodisiac, or maybe people simply have more time on their hands. Either way, many may be leery about expanding the family at this time, so condom sales have been on the rise.
With other retail sales slipping across the board, condom sales
jumped up 5% in the fourth quarter of 2008 and 6% in January, compared with the same time periods during the previous years, according to the Nielsen Company.
Continue reading Condom sales on the rise
Posted Feb 4th 2009 6:45PM by Sarah Gilbert
Filed under: Time Warner (TWX), Wal-Mart (WMT), Walgreen Co (WAG), CVS Corp (CVS)
A
standoff between two of the nation's largest periodical wholesalers and magazine publishers over a seven-cent surcharge could keep popular celebrity and news magazines out of most
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:
WMT) outlets this week. Some Walgreen and CVS stores would also be affected. The two wholesalers, Anderson News and Source Interlink Cos, deliver to 3,000 of Wal-Mart's 4,200 stores, and they are charging a seven-cent surcharge per magazine, which publishers like
Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:
TWX), Bauer Publications, and American Media refuse to pay.
A Wal-Mart spokesperson said that some stores would be without magazines this week, but wouldn't give specifics about titles or the number of stores. However, it was clear that the majority of stores would be affected; and the titles owned by the objecting companies include
People,
Time,
National Enquirer,
Star, and
Life & Style. Popular celeb titles
Us Weekly and
OK! were not subject to the standoff.
Continue reading Wal-Mart shoppers: Get your People and Enquirer fix elsewhere
Posted Jan 26th 2009 8:08AM by Melly Alazraki
Filed under: Earnings reports, Analyst reports, Pfizer (PFE), Starbucks (SBUX), McDonald's (MCD), Caterpillar (CAT), Halliburton (HAL), Walgreen Co (WAG), Sprint Nextel Corp (S), American Express (AXP), Kimberly-Clark (KMB), Amgen Inc (AMGN), Tyson Foods'A' (TSN), Texas Instruments (TXN), Barclays plc ADS (BCS)
Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) announced a
deal to acquire rival
Wyeth (NYSE: WYE) for $68 billion, or $50.19 a share, a 15% premium to Friday's close of $43.74. This cash-and-stock deal is the largest in the drug sector since 2000 and many see it as a precursor to a flourishing M&A season as the credit markets are slowly starting to improve. Pfizer also reported a 90% profit drop for the fourth quarter due to charges. PFE shares declined 3.4% in premarket trading, while WYE shares gained nearly 5%.
Barclays (NYSE: BCS) shares surged in London Monday after the
firm reassured investors in a letter to shareholders it didn't need more capital. But France's
BNP Paribas said it would take more cash from the government following a 1.4 billion euro ($1.8 billion) loss in the latest quarter. Finally,
ING (NYSE: ING), the Dutch financial services firm, also received government aid as it is expected to announce it had a net loss of 3.3 billion euros in the fourth quarter, that it would cut 7,000 jobs, and that its CEO would step down. BCS shares gained over 44% in premarket trading and ING's gained over 19%.
Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT) and
McDonald's (NYSE: MCD) are two Dow components set to report earnings this morning. CAT said its
fourth-quarter profit fell to $661 million, or $1.08 a share, from $975 million, or $1.50 a share, in the year-ago quarter. Revenue rose 6% to $12.9 billion. For 2009, Caterpillar gave a a much lower guidance than analysts had expected, $2.50 vs. $4.35 EPS. CAT also said it would slash 20,000 jobs. CAT shares fell over 11% in premarket trading.
Meanwhile, MCD delivered what at first glance seems to be
better-than-expected earnings of 87 cents vs. 84 cents. It even plans to invest $2.1 billion of capital to open about 1,000 new McDonald's restaurants.
American Express (NYSE: AXP) is the third Dow component tor report quarterly results after the close of trading today and is expected to report fourth-quarter earnings of 20 cents a share.
Continue reading Stocks in the news: PFE, WYE, BCS, CAT, MCD, PHG, WAG, SBUX, S ...
Posted Jan 15th 2009 11:10AM by Steven Mallas
Filed under: Wal-Mart (WMT), Walgreen Co (WAG), CVS Corp (CVS), Rite Aid Corp (RAD)
Walgreen (NYSE:
WAG ) knows that people want all kinds of options to meet their healthcare needs. Walgreen also knows that it needs to grow and keep up with competitor
CVS Caremark (NYSE:
CVS) and the pharmacy department at
Wal-Mart (NYSE:
WMT). And, yes, I suppose
Rite-Aid (NYSE:
RAD) is technically a competitor, too, although you wouldn't know it by that drugstore chain's stock price. Well, according to
The Wall Street Journal, Walgreen plans to promote an initiative called "Complete Care and Well-Being" to employers. The goal here is to give corporate, as well as government, employees and their families access to healthcare services such as preventive medicine and dental examinations in off-hour time periods. Walgreen will use a network of in-store clinics and health centers to provide these services. That's pretty cool, right? Well, one of the bigger benefits to Walgreen is the synergy it can promote by leveraging this program.
Continue reading Walgreen looking for growth with wellness network
Next Page »
This week brings a small flurry of end-of-the-calendar-quarter earnings reports. And for the most part, the expectations of the analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters aren't very high. Companies expected to report declining earnings in the most recently concluded quarter include 
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