Whole Foods Market (NASDAQ: WFMI) CEO John Mackey nearly derailed his company's acquisition of Wild Oats with a series of blog entries and bizarre anonymous message board posting doing everything from trashing competitors to complimenting his own hairstyle.
The SEC opened an investigation that was recently closed without any action and now Mackey is back to blogging on the Whole Foods site. In a rambling post, Mackey explained the reasoning behind his postings and thanked his board of directors and the SEC for their support. He strongly denied that his postings critical of Wild Oats were designed to beat down that company's stock price, and also said that he had not intended to inflate this price of Whole Foods Market stock with his enthusiastic posts on that message board.
He added that "I wish to apologize to all the stakeholders of Whole Foods Market-customers, Team Members, investors, suppliers, and our communities."
Great. Now if he could just lower the prices so us poor folks could afford a 12 ounce bottle of organic carrot juice.
Whole Foods Market (NASDAQ: WFMI) shares are falling after the company posted a second-quarter profit of $40 million, or 29 cents a share, below analysts' estimates of 30 cents per share. Growth has slowed for WFMI, which company executives are blaming on the slowing economy. If you think this stock won't be rising too far in the coming months, then it could be a good time to look at a bearish hedged play on WFMI.
After hitting a one-year high of $53.65 in October, the stock has hit a new one-year low today. This morning, WFMI opened at $30.17. So far today the stock has hit a low of $28.96 and a high of $30.21. As of 12:10, WFMI is trading at $29.37, down $4.27 (-12.7%). The chart for WFMI looks neutral and improving, while S&P gives the stock a positive 4 STARS (out of 5) buy rating.
For a bearish hedged play on this stock, I would consider an August bear-call credit spread above the $37 range. A bear-call credit spread is an options position that combines the purchase and sale of call options to hedge risk in case the stock doesn't do what you think but still leverage nice returns. For this particular trade, we will make a 7.1% return in three months as long as WFMI is below $37 at August expiration. Whole Foods would have to rise by more than 26% before we would start to lose money. Learn more about this type of trade here.
On Tuesday, microchip equipment maker Applied Materials Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT) reported a drop in its fiscal second quarter earnings due in part to a glut of flash memory chips, and organic and natural food retailer Whole Foods Market Inc. (NASDAQ: WFMI) also said second quarter profits fell, due to integrating its Wild Oats acquisition.
Applied Materials posted earnings of $302.5 million, or 22 cents per share, for the quarter ended April 27, compared with a profit of $411.4 million or 29 cents per share in the same period a year ago. Its adjusted net income came to 24 cents per share, beating the average analyst forecast of 22 cents, according to Reuters estimates.
Second-quarter revenue fell to $2.15 billion from $2.53 billion in the previous year. Analysts on average had expected revenue of $2.13 billion.
Shares fell 1.3% after the news but rose 2.7% in after-hours trading to $20.40.
Whole Foods reported that sales surged 28% in the second quarter to $1.87 billion, from $1.4 billion in the previous year. But net income fell 13% to $40 million, or 29 cents per share, in the quarter ended April 13; the acquisition of rival Wild Oats cost it 6 cents per share.
Analysts polled by Thomson Financial had predicted a profit of 30 cents per share on revenue of $1.89 billion.
Shares of Whole Foods fell $2.94, or 8.7%, to $30.70 in after-hours trading.
In a sign that you can't keep a good man down, the SEC has dropped its investigation into message board postings by Whole Foods (NASDAQ: WFMI) CEO John Mackey.
Reuters writes that the agency as "concluded a probe into its chief executive's anonymous Web chat room messages about then-rival Wild Oats Markets and recommended no action be taken."
Mackey can now go back to posting on other subjects but will have to come up with a new name to disguise his real identify. The old one, Rahodeb, has already been taken.
Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.
MOST NOTEWORTHY: The coal sector, independent refiners and Alexion Pharmaceuticals were today's noteworthy downgrades:
Goldman downgraded the coal sector to Cautious from Neutral, citing valuations and expectations for lower coal prices. The firm downgraded CONSOL Energy (NYSE: CNX) Peabody Energy (NYSE: BTU) to Neutral from Buy and Arch Coal (NYSE: ACI) to Sell from Neutral.
Lehman downgraded independent refiners, including Alon USA Energy (NYSE: ALJ), to Negative from Neutral and continues to believe that 2H07 marked an inflection point for U.S. refiners, which are transitioning from a multiyear up-cycle into a new downtrend.
Alexion Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ALXN) was lowered to Market Perform from Outperform at Wachovia following the company's Q4 results, as they believe management's revenue guidance represents a best-case scenario.
OTHER DOWNGRADES:
Lehman lowered Bayer (OTC: BAYRY) to Equal Weight from Overweight and Whole Foods (NASDAQ: WFMI) to Underweight from Equal Weight.
When a corporate executive begins to embrace the communication medium known as blogging, the world is generally a better place. In general, executives who blog are free from marketing censors and fluff that masks most corporate information -- from press releases to scripted quarterly results announcements.
Well, that is until one of them starts blogging anonymously in order to slam the competition and spread FUD all over the place. Mr. Mackey was caught red-handed this past summer posting anonymously to Yahoo!'s (NASDAQ: YHOO) finance message boards in relation to badmouthing natural food grocery competitor Wild Oats for a period of seven years. Mackey did not reveal that it was himself disparaging his competition at the same time Whole Foods Market (NYSE: WFMI), the company he founded in 1980, was considering a merger with its largest natural foods competitor.
Shares in high-end grocery retailer Whole Foods (NASDAQ: WFMI) have slid around 20% since early November. The most obvious explanation for the pullback -- investors remain concerned that a weakening housing market and continued turmoil in the credit markets could result in a slowdown at Whole Foods.
However, the company is more resistant to these pressures than many investors realize. Americans have shown an increasing desire to eat healthier -- a trend that has allowed sales of organic foods to grow at three times the rate as those at conventional groceries. As the largest retailer of organic products, Whole Foods is well-positioned to benefit from this trend.
Moreover, while the company is the clear leader in the organic grocery niche, it's still a minnow compared to traditional grocery giants like Safeway and Kroger. With only around 200 stores spread across the U.S., the U.K. and Canada, Whole Foods still has plenty of untapped markets to expand into over the coming years.
Two additional factors are also weighing on the shares at the moment. The first is a general fear regarding the potential impact of increasing competition in the organic foods market. In recent years, traditional grocery chains have been adding to their selection of organic foods. At the same time, new entrants, such as Britain's Tesco, are also targeting the space more seriously. However, Whole Foods remains the undisputed leader in this market and offers the widest product selection. Furthermore, there's plenty of room for multiple competitors in this growing space.
Finally, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) continues to pursue an antitrust case against Whole Foods' merger with rival Wild Oats Market. However, the FTC's case is weak and was strongly rejected by a judge earlier this year. The courts also rejected the government's attempts to block the merger pending an appeal -- Whole Foods has now completed the deal. It's highly unlikely that an appeals court will overturn the deal and break up the merger.
If you are interested in more analysis from Paul Tracy, you can find it at StreetAuthority.com
A classic case of misdirection: Whole Foods (NASDAQ: WFMI) reported weak earnings, but raised its dividend, sending its shares up as much as 7% after hours.
Whole Foods earned $33.9 million, or 24 cents per share, in its fourth quarter, down from $39.8 million, or 28 cents per share, a year earlier. The company blamed costs of merging with Wild Oats for much of the drop. Revenue rose 35% to $1.74 billion, in large part because of the merger.
But same-store sales were up an impressive 8.2%.
All in all, the market might have been dissatisfied with the numbers and pushed down the stock, especially in an environment where weak numbers can be especially punishing to a stock's price. But Whole Foods was clever and got around that. According toTheStreet.com, WFMI "increased its dividend 11% to 20 cents per share," making the stock more attractive to investors who may have concerns about earnings.
Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.
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