Yesterday we had Abercrombie and Fitch, and today Dollar General. Both of these are fast growing retail ventures hitting very different parts of the retail market.
According to CNN.money, Dollar General "is a discount retailer of general merchandise at everyday low prices through 6,192 stores located primarily in small towns in the midwestern and southeastern U.S."
Dollar General hit the biggest advances list today and is currently trading at $17.80, up $1.27 or 7.68% (1:02 pm CST). The stock is fairly reasonably valued at 22.53 times earnings (p/e), and is a large company with a market cap. of $5.9 Billion with 333.5140 Million shares outstanding.
What pushed the stock up today was the announcement of first quarter of fiscal 2003 results. Net income for the first quarter "increased 31.4% to $60.3 million or $.18 per diluted share, compared with $45.9 million or $.14 per diluted share in the first quarter of fiscal 2002." per the NYTimes on the Web.
Net sales grew to $1.57 billion for the first quarter of 2003 compared to $1.39 billion in the first quarter of 2002. During the year they reported 589 net new stores and a same-store sales increase of 4.2%.
Looking at a 5 year record on Morningstar.com, we find that sales grew from $3.2 billion in 1999 to $3.9 billion in 2000, $4.6 billion in 2001, $5.3 billion in 2002, and $6.1 billion in 2003. Excluding the current quarter just reported, we see solid growth in revenue the last four quarters at 15.54%, 18.65%, 14.41%, and 10.94%.
The assets/liabilities balance is in favor of assets....and the free cash flow reported has been steadily improving from a -1 million in 2001 to $140 million positive in 2002 and $300 million for the year ending 1/03.
This is a GREAT stock by almost all parameters. I don't own any shares at this time but would not hesitate to purchase some soon at these levels.
Good luck investing and thanks for stopping by.
Bob