Grocers

Credit Suisse initiated coverage of a handful of food-related stocks Tuesday. The Analyst Credit Suisse's Judah Frommer initiated coverage of the following stocks: SYSCO Corporation (NYSE: SYY): Outperform, $68 price target. Kroger co (NYSE: KR): Outperform, $28 price target....

Kroger Co (NYSE: KR) is scheduled to report fourth-quarter results before Thursday's market open, and Loop Capital is expecting a "solid" print — but said two key questions stand in the way of a bullish stance on the grocer. The Analyst Loop Capital Markets' Andrew Wolf...

Grocers have been plagued by food price deflation these days, with all and sundry in the industry warning of hits to their top lines. Of particular note, prices of food such as egg, dairy and beef have seen sharp declines in recent months. The Labor Department's consumer price inflation report...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is looking for a retail grocer volunteer to perform a two-year grocery delivery pilot test as part of its Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The pilot program is mandated by the 2014 Farm Bill and is intended to test the viability of allowing...

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) continues to invest in its pricing, which is triggering headaches for many of its traditional and non-traditional peers. Daniel Binder, a consumer and retailer analyst at Jefferies, commented in a research note on Monday that his August pricing work shows Wal-Mart...

Goldman Sachs updated its ratings for four food retailers/supermarkets, describing the sector as "challenging end market." "Grocery is a mature, low-growth sector characterized by relentless competition that appears to be intensifying. Industry sales are driven by inflation and correlated to...

Oppenheimer said the recent pullback in The Kroger Co (NYSE: KR) shares creates an attractive opportunity, while adding that concerns of more aggressive actions from Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) seem overblown. The brokerage, which has an Outperform rating on Kroger, is "incrementally more...

Whole Foods Market, Inc. (NASDAQ: WFM) is set to release its second-quarter results late Wednesday, and Macquarie said the results will be characterized by "accelerating negative comparable store store sales" and margin contraction "which could prove worse than anticipated." Wall Street expects the...

Last week, Whole Foods Market, Inc. (NASDAQ: WFM) announced a spinoff store called 365, with the first location set to open May 25. The new grocer's concept has been described as a practical way for Whole Foods to "improve the chain's overall competitiveness and value positioning,...

Two specialty retailers are expected to report their latest quarterly results this week. Consensus forecasts call for modest earnings growth from both companies. But only one of them has exceeded expectations in the past few quarters. The parade of quarterly results from the big retailers begins...