{"id":780099,"date":"2026-07-23T15:50:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T15:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/780099\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T15:50:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T15:50:10","slug":"albertsons-stock-plunges-on-lowered-outlook-softened-grocery-trends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/780099\/","title":{"rendered":"Albertsons stock plunges on lowered outlook, softened grocery trends"},"content":{"rendered":"

The exterior of an Albertsons supermarket as shoppers browse for groceries ahead of the Thanksgiving Day holiday in Redmond, Washington, Nov. 24, 2025.<\/p>\n

David Ryder | Reuters<\/p>\n

Shares of grocer Albertsons<\/a> sank more than 20% on Thursday after the company lowered its fiscal 2026 outlook, citing softer demand and a more cautious consumer.<\/p>\n

The company said it is now “moving decisively” to invest in the customer experience because it believes that will improve its growth trajectory.<\/p>\n

“In the first quarter, our digital and pharmacy businesses continued to deliver strong growth, while core grocery faced increasing pressure from softer industry unit trends and a more cautious consumer,” CEO Susan Morris said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The company’s outlook cut comes amid broader signs that U.S. consumers have scaled back their grocery trips.<\/a> Food inflation and tighter budgets due to high gas prices, among other factors, appear to be hurting spending. <\/p>\n

For the full year, Albertsons said it now expects net income between $1.75 and $1.85 per share, down significantly from its previous expectation of between $2.22 and $2.32 per share.<\/p>\n

It also lowered its adjusted EBITDA guidance to a range of between $3.55 billion and $3.625 billion, compared with a previous projection of between $3.85 billion and $3.925 billion. It also now expects identical sales, a metric similar to comparable sales, to be in a range of down 1.5% to down 0.5%, compared with a previous expectation of flat to up 1%.<\/p>\n

For the first fiscal quarter of the year, the company reported that identical sales fell 0.8%. Albertsons reported net income of $84.7 million, or 17 cents per share, compared with $236.4 million, or 41 cents per share, in the year-ago period.<\/p>\n

Still, Morris said on a call with analysts that while the pressure on consumers is weighing on near-term earnings, the company aims to “improve traffic, units, loyalty and the overall trajectory of the business over time.”<\/p>\n

Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The exterior of an Albertsons supermarket as shoppers browse for groceries ahead of the Thanksgiving Day holiday in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":780100,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[46706,448,28,122,2538,5682,332310,21],"class_list":["post-780099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-albertsons-companies-inc","tag-breaking-news-business","tag-business","tag-business-news","tag-food-and-drink","tag-retail-industry","tag-susan-morris","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=780099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/780100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=780099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=780099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=780099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}