Earnings Preview for Whole Foods (WFMI)

Whole Foods Market WFMI is scheduled to report first-quarter 2011 earnings after the closing bell tomorrow, May 4. Analysts are looking for the world's largest natural foods purveyor to announce that per-share earnings rose 15.2% from a year ago to $0.46. That consensus estimate has remained unchanged in the past 60 days. The company operates about 300 natural and organic food supermarkets in the United States, as well as in Canada and the U.K. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, the company offers perishable products such as produce, seafood, grocery, meat and poultry, and bakery, as well as private-label products such as nutritional supplements, body care and educational products. The company has maintained healthy margins even while recently modifying its pricing strategy and focusing on more value offerings. The consensus revenue forecast for the first quarter calls for $2.4 billion. That is an increase of 12.5% from the same period of last year. And looking ahead to the current quarter, analysts are looking for similar results: $0.45 earnings per share on $2.4 billion in revenues. Whole Foods earnings have not fallen short of consensus estimates in the past eight quarters; the beat in the fourth quarter was a nickel per share. The share price has pulled back from a recent 52-week high of $66.87 and opened today at $61.29. The stock is still up about 17% year to date, and in that time has outperformed the broader market, as well as competitors Kroger KR and Safeway SWY.