Whole Foods Market Price Target Raised By Jefferies & Company

Jefferies & Company has published a research report on Whole Foods Market WFMI after the company reported positive spending trends throughout the holiday season in 2010. In the report, Jefferies writes "Our post holiday proprietary survey was quite strong suggesting positive trends in overall spending, trade-up, willingness to spend on discretionary items, as well as traffic. This clearly should have a positive impact on comps, but could also help margins, suggesting that there is the potential for EPS upside in 1Q. Indeed, while we have nudged up our comp estimate to 8.5%, we do believe that there remains upside with every 1% in additional comp worth $0.02. Moreover, there are indications that the strong sales trends could also be beneficial to gross margins resulting from an improving mix with every 10 bps in gross margins adding another penny to results." Jefferies & Company maintains its Buy rating and has raised the price target from $47 to $60. Whole Foods Market closed yesterday at $50.01.