Whole Foods Market Inc. WFM just released its first quarter financial results ended January 15, 2017, posting earnings of $0.39 per share and record sales of $4.918 billion.

Currently, Whole Foods is a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) and is down 2% to $28.68 per share in trading shortly after its earnings report was released.

Whole Foods

Matched earnings estimates. The company posted earnings of $0.39 per share (excluding $0.09 from non-recurring items) which is matching the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.39 per share.

Missed revenue estimates. The company saw revenue figures of $4.918 billion, missing our consensus estimate of $4.985 billion.

Whole Foods reported an 18% increase to $284 million in cash flow from operations year-to-year. The company also invested $245 million in capital expenditures and saw a return of $43 million in quarterly dividends to shareholders. 

In 2017, Whole Foods is focusing on seeing sales growth of 1.5% or greater and improve diluted EPS to $1.33 or greater.

 “To this end, we are refining our growth strategy, refocusing our efforts on best serving our core customers, and moving faster to fully implement category management,” said John Mackey, co-founder and CEO. “Evolving our purchasing operating model while developing data-rich, customer-centric category management capabilities is critical to our go-forward merchandising, pricing, marketing and affinity strategies.”

Here’s a graph that looks at Whole Foods Market:

 

Whole Foods Market, Inc. Price and Consensus

Whole Foods Market, Inc. Price and Consensus | Whole Foods Market, Inc. Quote

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!

Check back later for our full analysis on Whole Foods earnings report!

Just Released – Driverless Cars: Your Roadmap to Mega-Profits Today

In this latest Special Report, Zacks’ Aggressive Growth Strategist Brian Bolan explores a full-blown technological breakthrough in the making – autonomous cars. He also spotlights 8 stocks with tremendous gain potential to feed off this phenomenon. Click to see the stocks right now >>

Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report
 
Whole Foods Market, Inc. (WFM): Free Stock Analysis Report
 
To read this article on Zacks.com click here.
 
Zacks Investment Research