Albertsons shares plunge 22% on profit warning, consumer pullback

By Peace Longe Fri, July 24, 2026 at 8:33 PM PDT 6 min read

Albertsons Companies (ACI) opened Thursday, July 23, at $12.50, more than $2 below Wednesday's close of $14.60.

By midday, the stock traded near $11.38, down about 22% and sitting on a fresh 52-week low of $11.02.

Grocery stocks are supposed to be the boring ones. People eat in good times and bad, which is why the sector gets treated as a place to hide when the economy wobbles.

Thursday broke that assumption.

The company that runs Safeway, Vons, Jewel-Osco, and 19 other banners told investors its shoppers are pulling back, and it cut its profit forecast by roughly 21%.

What Albertsons Actually Reported in the First Quarter

According to Albertsons' earnings release, the company earned $84.7 million, or 17 cents per share, in the 16 weeks that ended on June 20.

That's down from $236.4 million and 41 cents a year earlier.

Adjusted earnings came in at 42 cents per share against 55 cents last year.

Revenue barely moved, rising 0.2% to $24.94 billion, and the increase came from fuel sales rather than groceries.

Identical sales, which track stores open in both periods, fell 0.8%.

That identical sales figure is the one that stung, because it means the same stores sold less food to the same shoppers.

Albertsons said lower-income shoppers are trading down to private label and cheaper proteins, pressuring both units and basket sizes. — Cheng Xin / Getty Images

Why the Guidance Cut Hit Harder Than the Earnings Miss

Albertsons now expects adjusted earnings of $1.75 to $1.85 per share for fiscal 2026, down from $2.22 to $2.32.

The midpoint of $1.80 lands well below the $2.27 analysts had predicted, Yahoo Finance reported.

Adjusted EBITDA guidance dropped to a range of $3.55 billion to $3.625 billion from $3.85 billion to $3.925 billion.

Identical sales guidance flipped from growth of 0% to 1% into a decline of 0.5% to 1.5%.

A missed quarter is simply one bad report, but a guidance cut of this size tells investors the company expects the pressure to last through February.

The Consumer Signal Buried in the Numbers

Albertsons Chief Financial Officer Sharon McCollam gave the detail that matters most on the earnings call.

She said the sales decline was sharpest among lower-income customers.

Albertsons saw weakness in both the number of items bought and the size of the basket, Yahoo Finance reported.

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Chief Executive Susan Morris added that those shoppers are moving to private label, value packaging, and cheaper proteins.

She also said Albertsons is losing them mainly to Walmart (WMT), Amazon (AMZN), and Aldi.

That is a market-share problem dressed up as a macro problem.

Two adjustments soften the headline figure:

• Pharmacy pricing tied to the Inflation Reduction Act cost about 100 basis points
• Egg deflation cost another 50 basis points

Strip those out, and identical sales rose about 0.7%.

The stock still fell 22%, which tells you Wall Street cared more about the trajectory than the adjustments.

Albertsons Is Rebuilding Its Operating Structure Mid-Slump

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