Whole Foods, which pioneered the supermarket concept in retailing natural and organic foods to become the world's No. 1 chain of its kind, suspended its 20-cent quarterly common payout on Tuesday after the market closed. That'll save some $112 million yearly. The company did, however, double its stock-buyback authorization to $200 million. Whole Foods had initiated dividends in January 2004 at a split-adjusted 7.5 cents a share. The upscale grocer also said profits in its third fiscal quarter (ended June 30) tumbled 31% from a year earlier, to $33.9 million, or 24 cents a share, dragged down by the tough economic environment and by costs and charges related to its acquisition of Wild Oats. Revenues, though, rose 22%, to $1.84 billion, with a gain of 2.6% in same-store sales. The average estimate of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had been for the 28-year-old Texas company to earn 31 cents a share on revenues of $1.91 billion. Furthermore, Whole Foods reduced the number of stores it had planned to open in fiscal 2009 to around 15, from 25 to 30, and cut by 15% all discretionary capital expenditures not related to new stores.

Both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac suffered second-quarter losses much worse than Wall Street analysts had expected. In disclosing an $821 million deficit Tuesday, Freddie Mac, after halving its quarterly common dividend last November to 25 cents a share, said it now expects to slash it to a nickel or less later this quarter.

Larger rival Fannie Mae on Friday posted red ink of $2.3 billion and further reduced its quarterly, to five cents from 35 cents, which, in turn, had been slashed from 50 cents last December. That will preserve $1.9 billion in capital through 2009.

In the June 27 Daily Stock Alert, Barron's new subscription newsletter, Fleming Meeks noted that L-P's balance sheet is sound, and that making money on the stock's recovery is just a matter of patience. In predicting the dividend suspension, he observed that when L-P last passed its payout, in November 2001 (dividends weren't resumed until February 2004), the shares rallied sharply. Time will tell. By eliminating its common quarterly of 15 cents a share, L-P, the world's largest maker of oriented-strand board for the home-building industry, will save approximately $62 million annually. The Nashville, Tenn.-based company said in a statement that "the [dividend] suspension is among several initiatives in place to conserve...cash reserves during this unprecedented slump in the housing market." These include efficiency gains, cost reductions and downtime at mills to better match supply with orders. In this year's first half, L-P registered a loss from continuing operations of $125 million, versus year-earlier income of $52 million, or 50 cents a diluted share. Revenues declined 14%, to $736.4 million. Traded on the Big Board, L-P's shares were recently quoted at 9 and change. The 52-week high and low: 20.84 and 7.56. Standard & Poor's in late July lowered its ratings on L-P's debt issues to junk status and placed them on CreditWatch with negative implications because of what it believes are prospects for a greater-than-expected deterioration in L-P's available cash balances.