While its shares didn't move much on the news, yesterday's monthly sales report out of newly enlarged drugstore retailer CVS
Still, the company's shares barely budged on what amounts to normal daily trading volume yesterday. While that's not headline news, it does perhaps underscore the fact that investors are likely going to need some time to get a sense of precisely what the new-look CVS has to offer. We got a glimpse of that earlier this month when Woonsocket, R.I.-based CVS turned in Q3 financial results that included two months of Eckerd numbers.
Revenues jumped 24%, while same-store sales improved 5.2% with the pharmacy business performing better than the front end of the store. Gross margins improved, which should happen after a merger of this type. But costs associated with the merger hurt operating and net margins: In short, operating and net income came in about flat year over year.
Integration is going to take some time and cost some money, and that showed in the results. It may also help explain, to some degree anyway, why key competitor Walgreen's
Fool contributor Dave Marino-Nachison doesn't own any of the companies in this story.