Top grocers have a head start on Amazon

Article Excerpt

Shares of Loblaw and Metro—and many other grocers— fell on news that online retailer Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq symbol AMZN and a recommendation of Stock Pickers Digest) will buy organic grocery chain Whole Foods (New York symbol WFM). It will pay $13.7 billion U.S. Investors fear that Amazon’s e-commerce expertise will let it capture a large share of the grocery retail business in the same way it has disrupted sellers of books, music and clothing. However, Loblaw and Metro already let their customers order groceries online and pick them up at the store. As well, they have many more locations in Canada compared to the 13 stores that Whole Foods operates in this country. LOBLAW COMPANIES LTD. $71 (Toronto symbol L; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 396.1 million; Market cap: $28.1 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.6; Dividend yield: 1.5%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.loblaw.ca) operates Canada’s largest supermarket chain. Its 1,096 stores include a variety of banners: Loblaw, Zehrs, Provigo, Real Canadian Superstore…