These Canadian blue chips have gains ahead

Article Excerpt

LOBLAW COMPANIES $73.77 (Toronto symbol L; Shares outstanding: 366.1 million; Market cap: $27.0 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 1.7%; www.loblaw.ca) operates 1,085 supermarkets and 1,337 Shoppers Drug Mart pharmacies across Canada. Excluding one-time items. the company earned $373 million in the three months ended June 15, 2019. That’s unchanged from a year earlier. Due to fewer shares outstanding, per-share earnings gained 3.1%, to $1.01 from $0.98. Revenue in the quarter rose 2.9%, to $11.13 billion from $10.82 billion a year earlier. The company recently expanded its use of computer modelling programs to improve profit margins at its supermarkets. However, that led to more-modest price discounting, which hurt customer traffic. As a result, same-store sales for the company’s supermarkets rose just 0.6% year over year compared to the 0.8% gain a year earlier. Shoppers Drug Mart’s same-store sales in the quarter rose 4.0%, compared to just 1.7% a year ago. That gain is partly due to higher-than-normal demand for cold and cough remedies. Overall prescription…