BOULDER, Colo. -- Wild Oats Markets here said last week that despite comparable-store sales growth of 5.6% in the third quarter ended Sept. 28, the company was lowering its fourth-quarter comparable-store sales guidance to between 3% and 5.5%, a move that caused concerned investors to send Wild Oats' stock price down more than 25% on Nov. 5, the day the third-quarter results were announced.
The stock was $9.04 at the close of trading Nov. 7, down 19.9% for the week.
The lowered guidance was announced by Perry Odak, Wild Oats' president and chief executive, during a Nov. 5 conference call with analysts to discuss the quarterly numbers.
Carol Buyers, equity research analyst, RMC Capital Markets, Denver, said she had downgraded the Wild Oats' stock from "Outperform" to "Sector Perform" on that day even before the conference call. "We basically saw that the quality of their earnings was not so hot," she told SN. "The gross margins were not strong."
Jason Whitmer, research analyst, Midwest Research, Cleveland, offered a similar assessment. "If you look at the margins this quarter, they're down substantially."
In the 13-week quarter, sales rose 2.7% to $228.1 million, and net income was $2.2 million or 8 cents a share (vs. a net loss of $2.9 million or 12 cents per share in the previous year's third quarter).
Year-to-date, sales are up 3.9% to $697.3 million, comparable-store sales grew 6%, and net income was $4.3 million or 17 cents a share (compared to a net loss of $41.1 million or $1.69 per share in the first 39 weeks of last year).
