Christmas came early for drugstore chain Rite Aid. With more shoppers and prescriptions filled, its same store sales surged in the last three months and that got its shares moving higher Thursday. Profit jumped 47% and came in at 10 cents a share, double what analysts were expecting. On the top line, the company sold almost $6.7 billion worth of drugs and groceries in its third quarter, that was also much better than expected. Rite Aid filled more prescriptions and was able to charge patients 7% more compared to a year ago despite the introduction of some new generic drugs that are cheaper. Sales rose almost 2% for everything else that wasn’t medicine related. Looking ahead, Rite Aid says it expects 2015 same store sales to grow more than 4% and full year sales to top $26 billion. Shares have been steady over the past year.
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