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Marce Edwards is the business editor. She has been at The News Tribune for seven years and has written about technology and big businesses in the South Sound including Weyerhaeuser and Russell. Before moving to Tacoma, she worked at The Idaho Statesman in Boise. She is a Northwest native who likes to garden and refuses to use an umbrella. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and two kids.
C.R. Roberts is a Tacoma native. Before joining The News Tribune, he worked as a freelance writer and part-time cowhand on a cattle ranch in Northern Idaho. He writes about small business, personal finance and other business issues.
John Gillie writes about the aerospace and airline industries, commercial development and consumer issues. During his 30-year-tenure at The News Tribune he has covered issues as diverse as the Native American fishing rights disputes, crime and the courts, the wood products industry and energy. He lived in Tacoma with his family for 25 years, but now lives in Kent because his wife heads a five-state non-profit foundation headquartered in Ballard, and it only seemed a sensible compromise to make considering their workplaces are 40 miles apart.
Kelly Kearsley has been a business reporter at The News Tribune since 2005. She covers the Port of Tacoma and international trade. Being born and raised in Spokane she’s used to living in cities with inferiority complexes and, in fact, prefers it. Prior to working at The News Tribune, she spent three years as a reporter for The Bulletin in Bend, Oregon and another year working stints for The Associated Press and Seattle Times. She graduated from Pacific Lutheran University. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and miniature schnauzer.
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More of you are buying your groceries and gas at Costco to save money.
The company said today that it is dealing with higher food and fuel prices, which are squeezing profitability as it draws consumers hunting bargains, Bloomberg News reports.
Costco and discounter Wal-Mart Stores Inc. are bellwethers for how retailers will fare in the economic slowdown.
Here are the numbers: Costco said fourth-quarter profit rose 6.8 percent.
Net income for the quarter through August increased to $397.8 million, or 90 cents a share, from $372.4 million, or 83 cents, a year earlier, the company said today in a statement.
The results may have missed analysts’ estimates, UBS analyst Neil Currie wrote in a report today. Twenty analysts surveyed by Bloomberg predicted profit of 92 cents a share, on average.
“They’re navigating a bad economy very, very well,” Stephanie Hoff, an analyst at Edward Jones & Co. in St. Louis, said in a telephone interview today with Bloomberg. She recommends holding the shares.
Costco fell $1.04, or 1.8 percent, to $56.76 at 11:05 a.m. in Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading. Before today, the shares dropped 17 percent this year, compared with a 32 percent decline in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.
Costco buys gasoline daily and prices it to match or beat local competitors, so its profit erodes if fuel prices rise. The discounter said July 23 fourth-quarter profit would be “well below” the $1-a-share analyst consensus because gas prices were increasing the cost of buying and transporting goods.
Costco’s sales growth shows its strategy is working, Dan Poole, senior vice president of equity research at National City Bank, said today in a Bloomberg Television interview.
“They’re keeping prices low, not passing price increases along as quickly as they could,” said Poole, whose Cleveland firm manages $34 billion in assets including Costco shares.
