My belief is that brand and product variety are two strong holds of this company. I wont be surprised if the whole foods brand gets tainted with this scandal. The second strong hold can be overcome easily by a well established grocer.

Originally posted in thread: 10862

I am a Whole Foods shareholder and am looking for a place here under 40 to add to my position. Mackey did not move the market with any of his posts. Nor does almost any annonymous posts about stocks on discussion boards. He never released information that was not openly available to the puplic, and when he expressed opinion it was implicite that it was opinion. Most CEOs do not have the passion about their company to post on discussion boards with us peons.

The FTC has NO CASE!!! Why do you think this came up? They are grasping at straws and hoping that they will not be the only one that looks silly. Basically haters of this company can not have it both ways. Either competition is heating up and their competative position is in jeopardy or it has a near monoploly that with the purchase of Wild Oats will put them so far out of reach of competion that they will be able to exploit consumers.

Fundamentaly this company has not stopped growing. They have possibly reached 50% of their domestic saturation in number of stores. With Wild Oats (depending on how many stores they sell) they will be near 75% (more stores less square footage), this will let them focus on international growth like England where often times the quality and history of the food that people consume actually is a health threat occasionaly.

Simply the light is at the end of the tunnel. For you shorts who knows what near term will bring, but by the end of 07 I would be long WFMI as new store openings will start adding to the top and bottom line and this FTC mess will be behind it.

Originally posted in thread: 10862

it's not up to us to decide if the FTC has a valid case. I don't think so either, but courts have been known to do funny things. and litigation isn't exactly free, either - fighting a negative court decision will take time and money, and will distract management.

hopefully a court will find that Mackey's ill-considered comments have no bearing on the acquisition, but like I said, courts have been known to do funny things. it's certain that Mackey didn't help Whole Foods' chances with his stint as rahodeb. he may very well have hurt.

it's good that Mackey apologized, even if he sounded like he might have had a gun to his head. now, he needs to consider stepping down as CEO, and into some honorary post where he can guide the company, but leave the CEO role to someone with better control over themselves. when you're a CEO, your personal opinion cannot always be separated from the company's opinion.

Originally posted in thread: 10862

As a bottom fisher WFMI is getting tempting for me to buy an entry position. Any input is welcome. Thanks Don

Don,

 I followed M* opinion last year and bought the stock as it seemed to have good value at the time. I sold all of my holdings in it today for a loss. Even with its big hit yesterday it didn't even show much of a dead cat bounce today. I think  WFMI is going the way of Starbucks. Increasing competition and poor economy. I wouldn't be surprised to see it go down further.Might be okay for the long term but I don't have the patience for it. Rather put my money into other investments.

Link:

 http://seekingalpha.com/article/77395-whole-foods-market-like-starbucks-hit-by-slowing-economy-increased-competition

JMHO, Gene

 

Thanks for your input Gene. I value your opinion. I will continue to keep it on my watch list while doing more DD. Best regards, Don