Meh, right now it's at 21.5, down from 30 two days ago. Kroger isn't going anywhere, and they don't necessarily directly compete with the Whole Foods market. In fact, we have both in the area and use both for different items. I think their main competition right now is Walmart, which will be interesting to watch, but also a currently known entity. I doubt it goes below 20, and regardless I wouldn't be surprised to see it be back in the mid 20s within a week. Maybe an opportunity to stock pick! Wooooo!
Kroger covers a lot of market that Whole Foods doesn't, but Wholefoods still prevents Kroger from taking advantage of a segment of the market where walmart doesn't compete. Where I've lived, Kroger competes with Walmart on the lower end shoppers and then competes with either Publix or Whole Foods on the higher end (with Publix's market overlapping a little more completely than Whole Foods).
Based on my experience, Kroger must be run really, really well. But I don't envy them competing against Whole Foods, Publix, and Walmart, all of whom also appear to be run really, really well on slightly different business models that still compete in Kroger's space.
And the thing that is so potentially devastating about amazon/whole foods is that if Amazon applies the same disregard for healthy margins to groceries that it applies to its online retail, then Whole Foods is about to get much more attractive to a lot of shoppers like me, who appreciate Whole Foods' quality but not quite enough to pay the costs of making it their primary store (which is basically the exact market segment that Kroger enjoys that is not occupied by Whole Foods and Walmart.
