Out Fox The $treet

As investors were warned,  Rite Aid (RAD)  was only going to head lower following the 1-for-20 reverse split. The company provided the following financial targets for FY20: Sales to be between $21.5 billion and $21.9 billion in fiscal 2020  Same store sales expected to range from an increase of 0.0 percent to an increase of 1.0 percent over fiscal 2019. Net loss is expected to be between $170.0 million and $220.0 million.   Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be between $500.0 million and $560.0 million.   Adjusted net (loss) income per share is expected to be between a loss of $0.01 and income of $0.04. These are not the numbers investors want to see in a competitive environment where  Walgreens (WBA)  and  CVS Health (CVS)  are already dealing with competitive impacts from  Amazon (AMZN)  entering the pharmacy space. The likelihood of Rite Aid recovering isn't very high. Avoid or short the stock that k...

Amazon continues working on initiatives to explore the pharmacy sector. CVS Health trades near multi-year lows in part due to the Amazon threat. The net payout yields offer a positive signal if the e-commerce giant isn't a problem. CVS Health  (NYSE: CVS ) continues to trade down towards multi-year lows as weak earnings and fears of  Amazon  (NASDAQ: AMZN ) entering the pharmacy space have weighed on the stock. The company though is raking in billions in free cash flow and returning that cash to shareholders, making the stock appealing on several metrics. Read the full article on Seeking Alpha.  Disclosure: No position. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

Great news for one of the weakest stocks in our Net Payout Yield model. Express Scripts (ESRX) agreed to purchase MedcoHealth Solutions (MHS) for $29B. The deal gives MHS shareholders $71.36 based on the closing prices on 7/20 amounting to $28.8 in cash and 0.81 shares of ESRX. Considering ESRX is up 6% today the value of the deal got much more attractive now worth nearly $74. Oddly though, MHS has only traded up to around $65 most of the day. The nearly $9 gap suggests the market is concerned about the deal not completing. Anti-trust issues could pop up as the combined company will be a nearly $60B behemoth in the pharmacy benefits sector.  Interestingly though ESRX shareholders are excited enough about the deal to send their shares much higher. Maybe investors just aren't that good with math and are missing the share rise of ESRX and subsequent increase in the value to MHS shares in the deal. The combined company is promising to lead the effort to lower costs of prescription ...

MedcoHealth Solutions (MHS) provides investors the rare opportunity of a growth stock with a strong enough balance sheet and earnings to have a massive Net Payout Yield. MHS recently announced another $3B stock buyback program and they only have a market cap of $19B. That's an easy 15% yield if they spend it this year. Considering they bought back $1B+ in each of the last 2 quarters the yield is very attractive. Companies with this much cash flow just don't trade at these multiples. Unfortunately in this market most investors are looking for yields in bonds and dividend paying stocks. Considering MHS only offers the buyback portion of the Net Payout Yield, most investors are missing this high yielding stock. Considering the likely increase of dividend taxes in 2011 at least for high income individuals (the ones buying dividend yielding stocks in the first place), buybacks should be treated more advantageously but investors are too busy looking backwards. Buybacks are also tar...