Whole Foods - Double digit growth and tastes good too

This morning I took a list of companies that have had double digit growth in both sales and earnings and are projected to have that double digit growth continue and ran them against the Barchart technical indicators and Whole Foods Markets (WFMI) come up on top of the list.

Whole Foods Market (WFMI) is the largest purveyor of natural foods in the world. They own and operate the country's largest chain of natural food supermarkets. They are like an old-fashioned neighborhood grocery store, an organic farmer's market, a European bakery, a New York deli, and a modern supermarket all rolled into one! The Company also offers a wide variety of non-perishable natural products on its Web site at http://wholefoods.com.

If you visit one of their stores, don't expect to find one of those hippy granola bar shops of the 70's or a Pumping Iron protein drink joint.  There offer a lot of high end organic fresh food and even organic wine and beer. If you're going to drink, why not drink without guilt?

This isn't a small chain but has over 290 locations and is expected to gross over $10 billion in sales this year.  Growth as measured in same store sales has been 8.7%.  Recently during the recession some shoppers traded down but now as the economy loosens they are returning in droves.

Technical Factors:

• 100% Barchart technical buy signals
• Trend Spotter (tm) buy signal
• 4 new highs and up 2.39% in the last month
• Relative Strength Index is 68.43% and rising
• Trades around 14.40 with a 50 day moving average of 55.68

Fundamental Factors:

• Wall Street brokerage analysts have issued 9 buy and 15 hold reports recently
• Sales are projected to increase by 12.30% this year and 11.80% next year
• Earnings are projected to increase by 26.40% this year, 14.40% next year and 16.74% for the next 5 years

Investor Sentiment:

• This stock has extremely high and positive general investor sentiment
• CAPS members on Motley Fool voted 3,752 to 573 that the stock will beat the market
• The more experienced All Stars agree with a 1,253 to 106 vote
• Fool notes that the last 8 Wall Street columnists reports have been positive including a recent 2/10 recommendation by Zack

In the US shoppers are now looking at quality as well as price. I've bought some of their products and will return.  Put this one on your watch lists.

Jim Van Meerten is an analyst for  Marketocracy Capital Management.  He shares his knowledge and experience from over 40 years of investing in stocks, mutual funds and ETFs on Barchart.com  in his daily blog -- Barchart Portfolio Blogs.

Through Marketocracy Capital Management  you can have a Separately Managed Account that mirrors his Barchart Van Meerten New High model portfolio.

Whole Foods sells healthy lifestyles

Financial Tides likes Whole Foods promotion of a healthy lifestyle. They were hurting for a while when households traded down price wise during the beginning of the recession. For the first time in 5 quarters same store sales are up as shoppers again strive to eat healthy and organic if they can afford it. They have begun to market more private label items that are competitively priced with the larger chains. There are 51 new location coming on line bringing the total to 350 locations. That should give them major recognition in the marketplace.

Whole Foods Market is the largest purveyor of natural foods in the world. They own and operate the country's largest chain of natural food supermarkets. They are like an old-fashioned neighborhood grocery store, an organic farmer's market, a European bakery, a New York deli, and a modern supermarket all rolled into one! The Company also offers a wide variety of non-perishable natural products on its Web site at http://wholefoods.com.

The stock presently has upward price momentum with 3 new highs in the last 5 session and a 3.73% increase in the last 30 days. Barchart has an 88% technical buy signal with 11 of 13 indicators a positive buy. The stock trades at 40.17 with a 50 day moving average of 37.90.

Investor sentiment is very high on Motley Fool with the CAPS members voting 3,676 to 595 that the stock will beat the market. All Stars are in agreement 1,142 to 119.

Wall Street analysts are giving extremely aggressive growth rates for a grocery stock with sales predicted to increase by 10.40% this year and 9.30% next year. Earnings projections are off the chart with an increase of 56.50% this year, 15.00% next year and a 5 year compounded growth rate of 17.67% forecasted.

Whole foods has a healthy future with:

• Analysts predicting increased sales and double digit earnings growth
• High investor interests
• Recent price momentum with an 88% Barchart technical buy score

Jim Van Meerten is an investor who blogs about investing on Financial Tides and

Barchart Portfolio Blogs. Please leave a comment below or email JimVanMeerten@gmail.com

Disclosure: No WFMI at the time of publication

Other Article about WFMI:

Whole Foods Beats, Stay Bullish by Zacks on Yahoo Finance