Advertisement
U.S. markets closed
  • S&P 500

    5,254.35
    +5.86 (+0.11%)
     
  • Dow 30

    39,807.37
    +47.29 (+0.12%)
     
  • Nasdaq

    16,379.46
    -20.06 (-0.12%)
     
  • Russell 2000

    2,124.55
    +10.20 (+0.48%)
     
  • Crude Oil

    83.11
    -0.06 (-0.07%)
     
  • Gold

    2,254.80
    +16.40 (+0.73%)
     
  • Silver

    25.10
    +0.18 (+0.74%)
     
  • EUR/USD

    1.0793
    0.0000 (-0.00%)
     
  • 10-Yr Bond

    4.2060
    +0.0100 (+0.24%)
     
  • GBP/USD

    1.2638
    +0.0016 (+0.13%)
     
  • USD/JPY

    151.2370
    -0.1350 (-0.09%)
     
  • Bitcoin USD

    70,027.70
    -1,176.38 (-1.65%)
     
  • CMC Crypto 200

    885.54
    0.00 (0.00%)
     
  • FTSE 100

    7,952.62
    +20.64 (+0.26%)
     
  • Nikkei 225

    40,369.44
    +201.37 (+0.50%)
     

Dollar General Hits 52-Week High on Solid Q1 & Growth Efforts - Analyst Blog

Shares of Dollar General Corporation DG, one of the largest discount retailers in the U.S., soared to a new 52-week high of $79.82 last Friday, before closing trade a notch lower at $79.47, surging roughly 13% year-to-date. The company gathered momentum from its strategic initiatives and better-than-expected first-quarter fiscal 2015 results.

Dollar General’s strategies including better price management, cost containment, private label offering, effective inventory management, merchandise and operational initiatives are expected to drive sales going forward. Together with this, the company has been focusing on both consumables and discretionary categories, and items ranging between $1 and $5. The roll out of tobacco has been a key traffic driving factor. In addition, the company is expanding its cooler facilities to enhance the sale of perishable items while rolling out DG digital coupon program.

The company’s first-quarter fiscal 2015 earnings of 84 cents a share beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by a couple of cents and rose 16.7% from the year-ago period on the back of higher sales. Net sales increased 8.8% to $4,918.7 million.

Additionally, this Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) company has a fabulous comparable-store sales growth story with fiscal 2014 representing its 25th consecutive year of comps growth. In fiscal 2014, the company posted 1.5%, 2.1%, 2.8% and 4.9% comps growth for the first, second, third and fourth quarters, respectively. Consistently increasing traffic and average transaction value led to 3.7% growth in comps during the first quarter of fiscal 2015.

Apart from this, the company has been quite active in managing its cash flows, returning much of the free cash to shareholders through share repurchases. It bought back 7.1 million shares for $534.7 million during the first quarter of fiscal 2015. Moreover, it has been making prudent investments related to store infrastructure, store openings, expansions and relocations as well as in improvement of distribution centers to drive revenue.

Apart from Dollar General, Boot Barn Holdings, Inc. BOOT, Newell Rubbermaid Inc. NWL and Skechers USA Inc. SKX also hit 52-week highs of $33.27, $42.04 and $119.40, respectively, on Jul 10, 2015.

Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report >>
 


Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report
 
NEWELL RUBBERMD (NWL): Free Stock Analysis Report
 
DOLLAR GENERAL (DG): Free Stock Analysis Report
 
SKECHERS USA-A (SKX): Free Stock Analysis Report
 
BOOT BARN HLDGS (BOOT): Free Stock Analysis Report
 
To read this article on Zacks.com click here.
 
Zacks Investment Research

Advertisement