Dollar General (DG) Suffers a Larger Drop Than the General Market: Key Insights
In the latest trading session, Dollar General (DG) closed at $148.44, marking a -0.55% move from the previous day. The stock's performance was behind the S&P 500's daily loss of 0.12%. At the same time, the Dow lost 0.25%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 0.41%.
Prior to today's trading, shares of the discount retailer had gained 9.62% over the past month. This has outpaced the Retail-Wholesale sector's gain of 1.32% and the S&P 500's gain of 4.83% in that time.
The investment community will be paying close attention to the earnings performance of Dollar General in its upcoming release. The company is slated to reveal its earnings on March 14, 2024. It is anticipated that the company will report an EPS of $1.74, marking a 41.22% fall compared to the same quarter of the previous year. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $9.77 billion, down 4.22% from the year-ago period.
It is also important to note the recent changes to analyst estimates for Dollar General. Recent revisions tend to reflect the latest near-term business trends. As a result, we can interpret positive estimate revisions as a good sign for the company's business outlook.
Research indicates that these estimate revisions are directly correlated with near-term share price momentum. We developed the Zacks Rank to capitalize on this phenomenon. Our system takes these estimate changes into account and delivers a clear, actionable rating model.
The Zacks Rank system, stretching from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), has a noteworthy track record of outperforming, validated by third-party audits, with stocks rated #1 producing an average annual return of +25% since the year 1988. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection has moved 0.09% lower. Dollar General is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
Digging into valuation, Dollar General currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 20.09. This indicates a discount in contrast to its industry's Forward P/E of 22.69.
It is also worth noting that DG currently has a PEG ratio of 2.77. This popular metric is similar to the widely-known P/E ratio, with the difference being that the PEG ratio also takes into account the company's expected earnings growth rate. As of the close of trade yesterday, the Retail - Discount Stores industry held an average PEG ratio of 2.16.
The Retail - Discount Stores industry is part of the Retail-Wholesale sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 99, which puts it in the top 40% of all 250+ industries.
The Zacks Industry Rank is ordered from best to worst in terms of the average Zacks Rank of the individual companies within each of these sectors. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.
Be sure to use Zacks.com to monitor all these stock-influencing metrics, and more, throughout the forthcoming trading sessions.
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
Dollar General Corporation (DG) : Free Stock Analysis Report
