Whole Foods Split Earnings Result

Whole Foods put up adjusted earnings of 44 cents a share on revenues of $3.70 billion — slightly better than the 41 cents a share being forecast, but also slightly below the $3.74 billion in revenue prediction.

“We produced record sales and operating cash flow, and returned $144 million of capital to our shareholders. Through our improved cost structure and expense disciplines, we delivered strong EBITDA in a challenging sales environment,” John Mackey, co-founder and co-CEO of Whole Foods, said in a statement.

The street, by and large, liked the result at first, with a stock pick-up of around 5 percent, though some of those gains were returned in after hours.

There were some troubling spots in the report – the street’s favorite metric, same-store sales, fell by 3 percent in Q1, worse than the 2 percent forecasted ahead of time. The firm also adjusted earnings expectations down for the rest of the year some, with a prediction that they will “be at or below the low end of prior sales and earnings per share ranges, reflecting recent sales trends and additional investments in marketing and technology in the second half of the year.”