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Dollar General (DG) Gains But Lags Market: What You Should Know

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Dollar General (DG - Free Report) closed the most recent trading day at $231.07, moving +0.2% from the previous trading session. This change lagged the S&P 500's 1.19% gain on the day. At the same time, the Dow added 0.76%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.29%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the discount retailer had lost 6.84% over the past month. This has lagged the Retail-Wholesale sector's gain of 8.04% and the S&P 500's gain of 4.06% in that time.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from Dollar General as it approaches its next earnings report date. On that day, Dollar General is projected to report earnings of $3.24 per share, which would represent year-over-year growth of 26.07%. Meanwhile, our latest consensus estimate is calling for revenue of $10.32 billion, up 19.26% from the prior-year quarter.

Looking at the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates suggest analysts are expecting earnings of $10.94 per share and revenue of $37.96 billion. These totals would mark changes of +7.57% and +10.93%, respectively, from last year.

Any recent changes to analyst estimates for Dollar General should also be noted by investors. These recent revisions tend to reflect the evolving nature of short-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.

Ranging from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), the Zacks Rank system has a proven, outside-audited track record of outperformance, with #1 stocks returning an average of +25% annually since 1988. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection has moved 0.03% lower. Dollar General currently has a Zacks Rank of #4 (Sell).

Investors should also note Dollar General's current valuation metrics, including its Forward P/E ratio of 21.08. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 26.93, so we one might conclude that Dollar General is trading at a discount comparatively.

It is also worth noting that DG currently has a PEG ratio of 1.83. This metric is used similarly to the famous P/E ratio, but the PEG ratio also takes into account the stock's expected earnings growth rate. The Retail - Discount Stores industry currently had an average PEG ratio of 2.5 as of yesterday's close.

The Retail - Discount Stores industry is part of the Retail-Wholesale sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 92, which puts it in the top 37% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank gauges the strength of our individual industry groups by measuring the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks within the groups. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.

Be sure to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and many more, on Zacks.com.


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