Posted on 03/19/2010 8:16:19 PM PDT by STARWISE
Wal-Mart Stores Inc will cut food prices and mount a new ad campaign over the next six weeks, a threat to other U.S. grocers that sent an industry shares index down more than 2 percent on Friday.
A Morgan Stanley analyst first reported the world's largest retailer's plan, calling it a major setback for other U.S. grocers, and the company confirmed the promotions in an email.
"While this helps address Walmart's traffic woes, we view this as a major setback for the grocery stocks, which have been rallying on hopes of a return to more rational pricing," Morgan Stanley analyst Mark Wiltamuth wrote in a note on Friday.
The Standard & Poor's Food Retail Sub-Industry Index closed down 2.2 percent.
Walmart has used aggressive pricing in grocery and other units to bring shoppers into its stores. The grocery business is particularly pressured by such pricing, as its profit margins are already low.
Investors in Walmart have been concerned about signs that shoppers who gravitated to its stores during the worst of the recession -- boosting sales and profits -- are returning to rivals. Traffic fell in Walmart's U.S. stores during its fourth quarter, despite the holiday season, when shopping is at its peak.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
If you happen to be a trial lawyer - sure.
Don’t be obtuse. We live in an over-litigated society, but it beats living in an under-litigated one. Would you rather buy a defective baby stroller that hurts your kid and see someone held accountable, or would you rather buy a defective baby stroller that hurts your kid and see nothing done about it?
Sounds like your doctor has some ethical issues.
What ethical issues would that be, specifically?
We have a great WM with “foreigners” as customers...we live in tourist town. Believe it or now, the customers are polite and friendly.
Management is great, the store is clean, and I know the associates...all are helpful esp when I lose my keys!
I love WM. It has been a boom to this area.
“Protip: if the package says, don’t buy it.”
Bingo. When our Grand Daughter was 4 we taught her not to ask us to buy anything that said “MADE IN CHINA,”.
She taught that to her brother when he too started reading at an early age.
That rule still is in effect 7 years later at Walmart, Target, or some local trying to sell the China stuff at a higher price with less service.
We will be picking up our Grandkids for a few days tomorrow. One of the first questions we will ask them is, “Do we buy anything made in China!”
If the answer isn’t correct, we don’t leave their driveway or where ever we pick them up.
When gas prices go over $3/gallon and diesel does the same,everything goes up at Walmart or where ever.
Has anyone read articles about the high prices of gas/diesel like we used to get 100 times a week when it was as usual, “Bush’s fault!”
Maybe we'll be litigated 'just right' in heaven, but the harsh reality is that perfection is never to be completely attained whilst we exist on this physical plane.
Under-litigated is what the third world is This means not only that it's hard for you to sue someone else, it's also hard for the other guy to get at you; and that means insurance costs are way down and medical care is readily available at a fraction of stateside costs. OK, it's rough when there's no machinery for enforcing contracts, so people just have to check others out more before doing business. In my book this is no different from America except the third world doesn't have to support a fat overpaid lawyer class.
Another note to make is the govt’s shut-off of the water to central CA. It's just sickening to see all the dried up groves of fruit trees. Productive groves that are now just piles of dried up wood that no pay to play water deal in this healthscare monstrosity will ever be able to rectify.
We have to keep fighting to put govt back in the ‘constitutional box’ that they belong in and get them out of our bedrooms. When they control the food & our bodies(healthcare), they control our very essence and liberty is no more.
Me too. Those guys are happy and successful and imho that's what the flack is all about. We got too many losers that freak out whenever they see either happiness or success, and when they come across both at the same time they go into orbit!
Ok for fear of being hit about the head and shoulders from Floridians. I grew up on California oranges, they are the best. This makes me sick. Is the goal to kill off humans or are food riots the goal.
Can’t for the life of me figure out the agenda of the human haters.
LOOK they are distributed from Bentenville, AK. I have no problem buying a product distributed in the USA in comparison with purchasing a product distributed in China. Look around your house at the labels and tell me honestly you have not bought items from other retailers that are made abroad?
You think imposing more govt regulations on big corps is the answer? turn on the news and watch what the govt is doing to the private insurance industy.
Why do you have so much animosity for Wal-mart? are you a union man?
Not this person! I noticed when the toilet paper rolls got 10mm shorter. ;)
Do you want to talk about our legal system or food?
Our legal (note; I didn't say justice - justice has nothing to do with it) system is run by and for the trial lawyers. My problem with it is the healthy cut (some put at 50-60%) they take off the top.
On food; the market is being "hollowed out" just like other manufacturing. You may think your Sara Lee cookies or your John Deere tractor are made in the US, but they are just assembled here of Chinese components.
The only remedy for either is buyer knowledge. I'd like to see country of origin marking for products and ingredients.
Great. So when you get poisoned, you can sue the label.
That is terrible. Our little city (30,000) has 2 Walmarts. I don’t buy much produce there because it is much cheaper and better to stop at Aldi’s for that.
Great Value Brands are made by Conagra which is an American Co. Research it.ConAgra Foods, Inc. (NYSE: CAG) is one of North America’s largest packaged foods companies. ConAgra’s products are available in supermarkets, as well as restaurants and food service establishments. Its headquarters are located in Omaha, Nebraska. ConAgra also formerly had locations in Irvine, California, and Downers Grove, Illinois (which were both headquarters of the former company, Beatrice Foods).
My Walmart doesn’t carry fresh food
or meat, so I don’t know.
I am not or never have been a union man. And I don't have a great deal of animosity against WM, altho I do have some, and I'm not the only one. My main animosity is reserved for the Chinese, and their poisonous crap that WM imports so much of. Other feelings of animosity arise from the fact that historically, WM comes into an area, drives out many locally owned mom and pops,receive local tax breaks to do this, operate that store for a few years, then disappear before any employees have their twenty year retirement accrued.
Apparently, many local governments are catching on to some of these attributes of WM and are no longer so friendly to new stores in their area.
Another reason that I disagree with WM is their extensive use of part-timers, in order to avoid paying for any benefits. (I am aware other employers do this also.)
In the Pacific NW, no one comes close to the really low prices at WinCo.
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