Income is a big part of investors' returns. Stocks, mutual funds and fixed income ideas in this column are featured because they are relatively solid in their ability to pay dividends or interest. We're giving income investors a resource to start their research for investments that give better yields with lower risk.

It has approximately 2,394 traditional and hard-discount retail food stores, including 899 licensed Save-A-Lot stores.

The company also offers supply chain services, which include wholesale distribution of products to independent retailers, including single and multiple grocery store independent operators, regional and national chains, mass merchants, and the military customers, as well as provides logistics support services. SUPERVALU was founded in 1871 and is based in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.

Yes, the dividend looks good, even solid. Five percent return is great in this low interest rate environment. But if the company isn't earning money, it can't keep paying the dividend. And the company didn't make money
in the third quarter, showing a loss of 95 cents a share. True, the loss was due to non-cash goodwill (when a company writes down the excess it paid for another company) and intangible asset impairment charges. But it's still a loss. Sales were $8.327 billion, $300 million below the third quarter of 2010 (fiscal year ends February 29). The company has reported lower sales (when compared to the same quarter in the previous year) for the last 15 quarters.

Earnings should take a decent bounce in 2011, up from 79 cents in 2010, to $1.23 if the consensus from 18 analysts is correct. Full year earnings will be out in early April. For 2012, analysts don't see an improvement, predicting $1.23 again with a range of $1.03 to $1.40. They see sales for 2011 finishing at $35.71 billion, down 4.9% from 2010. Then see another decline of 1.1% to $35.31 billion for 2012. These trends are not promising.

Investors have taken note. The stock has been hard, down 15% after the November numbers for the third quarter were released. It now trades near its lows, touching $6.24 on October 4 of last year. For the last 52 weeks, it's down 4.95%.

But all is not lost. Management lowered operating costs and profits are starting to stabilize. While sales have been eroding, cutting costs has been effective, realizing about $130 million in permanent expense reduction in the first 3 quarters of 2011. Management wants to wring out another $30 million in the last fiscal quarter. With these cost savings, look for lower prices on store shelves as management is focused on raising sales volume. Of course, the main driver for better numbers, sales and profits, is the economy. When consumers feel more secure about their jobs, they'll start spending more, beginning with their groceries.

Debt is also a concern. There's $6.9 billion of it on the books. While interest rates are lower which means lower debt payments, management is determined to get more of it off the books. It's using free cash flow to pay down its obligations. In the next 2 years, about $750 million of debt is coming due.

-Essential numbers:
- Market Cap: $1.46 billion
- Forward P/E: 5.65
- Price to sales ratio: .04
- Price to book: 1.97
- Operating margin: 2.75%
- Profit margin: - 1.43%
- Return on equity: -51.94%
- Return on assets: 4.61%
- Total cash: $196 million
- Cash per share: 92 cents
- Total debt: $6.9 billion
- Debt to equity: 926%
- Current ratio: 1.01
- Book value per share: $3.51
- Beta: .98
- Shares outstanding: 212.27 million
- Float: 210.34 million
- Insiders own: .88%
- Inistitutions have: 95.3%
- Dividend: 35 cents
- Yield: 5.1%

Investors may want to wait on SVU for a while. There is only so much management can cut from expenses. After that, in order to see better profits, sales have to rise. When that happens, look for this stock to improve. Another indicator of better times: lower debt levels. They have to come down for sustained profitability.