.bodytext {float: left; } .floatimg-left-hort { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right: 10px; width:300px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-caption-hort { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:300px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-vert { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right:15px; width:200px;} .floatimg-left-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; font-size: 10px; width:200px;} .floatimg-right-hort { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px;} .floatimg-right-caption-hort { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimg-right-vert { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px;} .floatimg-right-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; border-top-style: double; border-top-color: black; border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-color: black;} .floatimgright-sidebar p { line-height: 115%; text-indent: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar h4 { font-variant:small-caps; } .pullquote { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 150px; background: url(http://www.dmbusinessdaily.com/DAILY/editorial/extras/closequote.gif) no-repeat bottom right !important ; line-height: 150%; font-size: 125%; border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} .floatvidleft { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatvidright { float:right; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} Dear Mr. Berko:

Dear T.I.:

My problem isn’t with Bank of America’s branches, rather its management policies and philosophies that treat depositors like a statistic. However, if low commission costs are your most important consideration, then Bank of America Corp. (BAC-$48.96) might give you the cheapest buy for your buck.

The brokerage arm of BAC made minor headlines last year when it offered customers 30 free online stock trades a month. The only requirement (and apparently a minor one for you) is that you have a minimum deposit of $25,000 in a checking or savings account with BAC. For those who don’t have that kind of liquidity, BAC charges between $5 and $14 per trade, which is tremendously less than you’d pay at Merrill Lynch.

Even though BAC pays 4.7 percent on your excess cash, I’d prefer Fidelity, which pays 3.5 percent, in a heartbeat. I believe Fidelity offers a better selection of investment alternatives, superior banking amenities, a wider selection of trading tools, more timely research and preferable customer service. However, you might take a few peeks at E-Trade Financial Corp. (ETFC-$14.32), which, in my opinion, is pound for pound superior to BAC or Fidelity but pays only 1 percent on free cash balances.

Stay with BAC. You only make about 10 trades a month and it might be a bad pain in the big toe learning to acclimate yourself to a different trading platform.

Yes, Winn-Dixie Stores Inc. (WINN-$20.06) has come out of bankruptcy and its 522 stores will sell about $7.2 billion worth of edibles and vendibles this year. In the process, WINN pays $6 million in salaries to its top four executives, none of whom, in my opinion, is worth that kind of money. WINN’s locations are still old, bleak and probably intentionally ugly. I think it’s part of WINN’s design-cost-use equation.

WINN has always promoted function over style and cost over function. Perhaps that’s why so many WINN locations look unclean and can’t make a profit. WINN has been a failure for a long time, and I’d rather own a proven winner.

And that winner could be Whole Foods Market Inc. (WFMI-$42.98) With 201 locations and $6.5 billion in revenues, it’s the largest natural and organic food market in the United States. Last year, this enormously profitable company with 41,500 employees paid its top four executives only $1.3 million.

Shopping at a Whole Foods might be more expensive than Winn-Dixie, but the food products are fresher, tastier and more appealing by orders of magnitude. Shopping at a Whole Foods is also an artistic experience. Somehow, management has smartly positioned its food displays to project awesome rainbows of color. Whole Foods offers huge assortments of beautiful cheeses, colorful vegetables, tasty beers, 40 or so selections of bulk cereals, grains and flours, assortments of fresh seafood, beautiful meats, fantabulous hot and cold food bars, a superb deli with myriad choices, delectable breads, pastries and pies and on and on and on. After a tense day, I’ll wander about a 40,000-square-foot Whole Foods to marvel and relax, and sometimes I almost feel like Alice in Wonderland.

That perception has been responsible for a superb record of revenue and earnings growth. Projected per-share earnings of $1.67 for 2008 exceeds this year’s earnings of $1.43, and Wall Street expects WFMI to earn $3.35 by 2011 on estimated revenues of $14 billion. A 10-year average annual price-earnings ratio of 23.5 supports a share price of $79. WFMI has practically zero debt, operating margins are a strong 8.5 percent, net profit margins are an awesome 3.2 percent and management expects to open 20 stores next year without borrowed funds. Shopping at Whole Foods is a delightful psychological experience and I think owning the stock could be a delightfully profitable experience.

Please address your financial questions to Malcolm Berko, P.O. Box 1416, Boca Raton, Fla. 33429 or e-mail him at malber@comcast.net.

© Copley News Service