Jefferies Provides Color on Safeway, Hold

Jefferies provided color on Safeway SWY after a meeting with the company's management. In a research report published today, Jefferies stressed it believes the company has made a number of good investments in recent times, but it will still take some time for them to make a full impact on the company's performance. In the report, Jefferies states, "The company echoed (not updated) their comments from the 1Q11 conference call regarding current competitive, sales and consumer trends. Our research suggests that comps are roughly +1%, buoyed by inflation as we believe volumes have softened slightly. While we believe that the company has made many of the right investments and that these internal initiatives will likely lead to further sales growth and loyalty, it appears the lift has yet to materialize." At the moment, Jefferies has a Hold rating and a price target placed on the company's stock. On Monday, Safeway closed at $22.19.