Replies to post #71026 on Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

Re: Walgreen’s

…you could attribute Walgreen’s 4.9% year over year December pharmacy sales increase to the increase in the number of weekdays, however, I attribute it to the increase in the number of comparable stores.

DoA, 4.9% was the year-over-year increase in WAG’s comparable store sales; the year-over-year increase in total sales (including new stores) was 10.8%. In the pharmacy section, year-over-year growth in comparable store sales was 13.5% and year-over-year growth in total sales was 8.5%. The two extra weekdays accounted for about 300 basis points of the year-over-year increase in comparable store sales. Regards, Dew

[DewDiligence]

Addendum on the Walgreen’s quiz: The motivation for the quiz was the observation that people buy stuff in the “front end” of a drugstore relatively evenly on each day of the week, but in the pharmacy section of the store, business drops off precipitously on the weekend.

I don’t understand why this is true; perhaps one of the pharmacists who reads this board will chime in.

[DewDiligence]

Walgreen is taking prophylactic action now, knowing
that there will be fewer weekdays in December 2009:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Walgreens-Announces-Reduction-bw-14002758.html

:- )