wfmi red today,

GAP accounting doesn't recognize long-term store leases as either an asset or a liability. You are the one who keeps saying they are liabilities and making a big deal out of them. I've made 3 points which you haven't been able to refute yet (and won't be able to refute).

1. Long-term operating store leases are not considered to be liabilities in GAP.
2. In 25 years Whole Foods has never had one store ever fail. Therefore the chances of those operating leases costing Whole Foods much money is slim to none.
3. Those long-term operating leases protect the long-term capital expenditures the company has invested in its stores by guaranteeing that the company has the right to operate their business at the location for the duration of the lease.

The stock option exercise in Whole Foods Q1 is entirely the result of a one time event of vesting 100% of all outstanding options in September to avoid unnecessary paper accounting losses on a go forward basis. If you look back over the history of the company (picking any year you wish) you will see that cash raised from option exercises is less than 20% of the cash raised from operations.

I've already stated that Q1 cash flow is an abberation and doesn't reflect any change in the go forward operating cash flow. However, you can believe it is significant if you want to.

Keep shorting Whole Foods. You'll end up losing big time, just like 99.9% of the other shorts have done over the past 14 years.