Posts for Ticker ‘UNFI’

Goldman Sachs Raises United Natural Foods, Sort Of (UNFI)

United Natural Foods Inc, (NASDAQ: UNFI) was beaten like a rented mule last night in after hours trading after an earnings disappointment and an earnings warning.  The company is not yet seeing any leverage or efficiencies from a merger.  Shares this morning will be trading at roughly a four or five year low.

Goldman Sachs is out with a research note this morning that is technically an upgrade.  The brokerage firm is removing this from its Americas Sell List, although the "raised rating" is only a new "neutral" rating.  The stock is now well below Goldman Sachs prior $24 target and this noted "historically low valuations" in the call.

This was just added to the Americas Sell List on January 7, 2008, so the calls on this one would at least be considered timely.

Jon C. Ogg
February 22, 2008

Posted on: February 22, 2008 – 7:35 am in Analyst Calls, Earnings, Food,

Whole Foods, Whole Earnings (WFMI, UNFI)

Whole Foods (NASDAQ:WFMI) is trading up in after-hours following the company’s earnings report.  It posted 1.743 Billion revenues, and earnings were listed as $0.24 EPS (but that appears to be after $0.10 for pre-open and relocation stores and $0.04 in options).  First Call had estimates at $0.30 EPS and $1.61 Billion in revenues.  Its same store sales for the quarter were up 8%.

The company also boosted its quarterly dividend to $0.20 per share and now sees 25% to 30% sales growth in Fiscal 2008 with another gain in comparable sales between 7.5% to 9.5%.  The high end consumer is still alive and isn’t being driven back to cheaper food.  Other metrics:

  • The Company expects to open a comparable number of new stores in fiscal year 2008 as in fiscal year 2007.
  • Capital expenditures for the fiscal year are expected to be in the range of $575 million to $625 million.
  • The Company currently operates 269 stores totaling 9.3 million square feet and has 87 stores in development totaling 4.5 million square feet.
  • Longer term, the Company’s goal is to reach $12 billion in sales in fiscal year 2010.

Shares closed down 1.8% at $42.25 today, but shares are now up over 7% to $45.32 in after-hours. This could have been somewhat seen if you follow the supply chain with others today, although the internal metrics and guidance was of course a wild card.  This follows the 6.6% rise in shares of United Natural Foods (NASDAQ:UNFI) today after its own earnings.

Jon C. Ogg
November 20, 2007

Posted on: November 20, 2007 – 4:24 pm in Earnings, Food, ,

Cramer Organic & Naturals Trend Stock (HAIN, UNFI, WFMI)

On tonight’s MAD MONEY, Jim Cramer wanted to discuss a stock in a great trend from microtrends.  The vegan children and organic going mainstream is a huge and growing market and he likes Hain Celestial (NASDAQ:HAIN) as the play for this.  This stock closed at $33.76, down 0.76% today, but shares rose over 3% to $35.00 in after-hours trading after the Cramer note.  This has a $1.34 Billion market cap, and this looks like a new 52-week high.

A name that 24/7 Wall St. likes just as much or more at current prices is United Natural Foods (NASDAQ:UNFI), which is more of the casino operator analogy rather than the gambler.  This has a few of its own packaging but it distributes over 40,000 products.  It already got the guidance out there for 2008 which was in a combined Whole Foods (NASDAQ:WFMI) and Wild Oats environment that really hit the stock.  As Kroger goes more organic and as Safeway and others are increasing organic and natural offerings this is one we like even better.  The only thing we don’t like is that United Natural has a bit more exposure to transportation and materials costs comparatively and that may keep a lid on this.

Jon C. Ogg
October 24, 2007

Posted on: October 24, 2007 – 5:31 pm in Cramer, Food, , ,

A Lot to Chew for Organic Investors (HAIN, UNFI, WFMI, OATS)

This week may be less active in shares traded because of the pre-Labor Day absence of many Wall Street pundits.  But it is a very important week for organic food and health(ier) food companies.  Whole Foods (NASDAQ:WFMI) has closed the Wild Oats (NASDAQ:OATS) transaction, and the stocks should trade as one after this week.  Whole Foods has surprisingly seen its shares rise more than 20% off of the post-Mackey SNAFU lows from just a few weeks ago, and that has been during a time that the market hasn’t been all that hot.

Hain Celestial (NASDAQ:HAIN) is also reporting earnings after today’s close.  Analysts are looking for $0.28 EPS and revenues of just under $227 million.  For the coming quarter estimates are $0.28 EPS and $239 million in revenues.  Hain Celestial shares are in the mid-point of its 52-week trading range.

United Natural Foods (NASDAQ:UNFI) is in the spotlight ahead of its earnings this Friday.  United Natural Foods has seen its stock under pressure since the Whole Foods and Wild Oats merger was announced as two key customers were consolidating into one. Analysts expect United Natural Foods to post earnings of $0.34 EPS on revenues of $723.3 million, and next quarter is expected to show $0.34 EPS on revenues of just under $744 million.  This report will also mark the year-end for United Natural.  If it offers fiscal July 2008 estimates, those estimates are $1.46 EPS and $3.141 Billion in revenues.  The best thing about this report is that the forward guidance may clear up much of the uncertainty that has surrounded this stock, and this stock is only about 10% above a key support level that has been in place for about two and a half years.  This one has been overly punished, as shares are down $11.00 from the $38.40 highs over the last year.

Jon C. Ogg
August 29, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Posted on: August 29, 2007 – 10:44 am in Food, , , , , ,

Critiquing Smart Money’s “Ten Stocks for the Next Ten Years”

Stock Tickers: AAWW, CELL, HPOL, OSIS, PWAV, SIRO, TTEK, UNFI, VAS, WTS

The new cover story for the May 2007 Smart Money Magazine is an interesting one as "The Ten Stocks For The Next Ten Years" and is one that will carry some interest from small cap and growth-oriented investors for those seeking secular trends.  This was posted online earlier this week, but this is the sort of issue that you usually want to look at a few days after the dust settles and over the first weekend that the magazine is actually on the stands.  Many will have seen this online or will have seen some of it this morning on CNBC or elsewhere, but most readers of the hard copy will probably be reviewing this 10/10 list over this weekend.

The screening criteria used by Smart Money was not a focus on the classic P/E ratios or book value, and the names are an interesting mix of companies.  Many of these are well known and have been around for some time, and some are rather obscure names that the public doesn’t follow that closely. The screen put a greater emphasis on price/sales ratios; its looked for a classic small-cap range from $300 million to $2 billion in market value; a history of rising sales of at least 10% a year over the past five years. That screen produced 150 names that they chose 10 stocks from.

Read More »

Posted on: April 13, 2007 – 9:25 am in Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , ,