We have worked very hard through the structure added with the project accelerate and focusing on our customers with greater visibility of underlying trends within our discretionary areas and the result of that has been the inventories that we have of discretionary items have improved in their productivity.

So while our assortments have been tailored and the risk profile of the assortment has been reduced, in many respects we still have the items that our customers’ desire and we are aligned with them better than we’ve ever been. So I expect to continue to see productivity gains in the discretionary area and I expect us to be able to drive positive sales in those areas notwithstanding a reduction of space and inventory.

Howard R. Levine

And Mike, just a clarification, the space realignment really did not begin until the late part of May so there really was not a space reallocation move going on during the third quarter. Inventory reductions were made but not space realignment.

Michael Baker – Deutsche Bank

Got it, interesting. And then one more follow-up, I notice you bought back stock for the first time in I think four or five quarters this quarter, does that have to do with the auction rate security market, which I think it held back some buybacks previous quarters or more just confidence in what you’re seeing in your business or if you could just discuss that decision to start buying back stock after about a year. Thanks.

Kenneth T. Smith

I think we’re very pleased with the cash flow generation we’ve seen and the strength of our balance sheet so certainly a year-and-a-half or so ago the auction rate issue arose, but currently we had an authorization and as we look at capital deployment we have a very consistent philosophy in that we look first to invest in our business internally and our strategic initiatives back into the business.

Secondly, we fund our very consistent dividend program and then third, we look at the opportunity to return money to our shareholders via buybacks. So we felt confident about that and began buying back in the third quarter and as we consistently have, we’ll evaluate the opportunity to buy further stock back on an ongoing basis.

Howard R. Levine

And Mike, I would add, it’s a tough economy out there and we got pretty cautious as a number of companies did during the last year. I think the indication shows that we feel good about the underlying positive trends of our business. And just to add that impacts, that is indicative of how we feel about new store growth as well as there’s still plenty of opportunity for new store growth out there. It’s something that is very important to us and just wanted to make sure that all understand the importance of that as we move through the various cycles that we’re in.

Michael Baker – Deutsche Bank

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

I think our next question comes from Bernard Sosnick with Gilford Securities.

Bernard Sosnick – Gilford Securities

Good morning. Your accounts payable dropped by $58 million and you called attention to that. I noted that there were opportunities to get discounts on consumables. Could you flesh out for us a little bit the benefits that you’ve derived from such discounts and whether or not there are issues in retail and generally amongst retailers that don’t have cash that gives you an opportunity to employ cash in a beneficial way?

Kenneth T. Smith

I think certainly we benefit from a strong cash position. We did in fact without quantifying it, we have seen as we’ve compared to both our plans and last year and look at the amount of purchase discounts that we have related to our purchasing of inventory, we have seen obviously some positive impacts there.

So, it is again the accounts payable leverage is a timing issue and relates more to the receipts and the type of merchandise we’ve received toward the end of the quarter.