Dollar General (DG) closed at $101.87 in the latest trading session, marking a +2.67% move from the prior day. The stock outperformed the S&P 500, which registered a daily gain of 1.56%. Meanwhile, the Dow gained 1.29%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, added 2.21%.
The stock of discount retailer has fallen by 4.96% in the past month, leading the Retail-Wholesale sector's loss of 5.02% and undershooting the S&P 500's gain of 0.41%.
The upcoming earnings release of Dollar General will be of great interest to investors. In that report, analysts expect Dollar General to post earnings of $0.95 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 6.74%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $10.62 billion, up 4.25% from the year-ago period.
DG's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $6.13 per share and revenue of $42.5 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of +3.55% and +4.66%, respectively.
Investors should also pay attention to any latest changes in analyst estimates for Dollar General. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of near-term business trends. With this in mind, we can consider positive estimate revisions a sign of optimism about the business outlook.
Our research suggests that these changes in estimates have a direct relationship with upcoming stock price performance. 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, running from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), holds an admirable track record of superior performance, independently audited, with #1 stocks contributing an average annual return of +25% since 1988. The Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 0.12% higher within the past month. Dollar General currently has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).
Valuation is also important, so investors should note that Dollar General has a Forward P/E ratio of 16.18 right now. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 22.31, which means Dollar General is trading at a discount to the group.
One should further note that DG currently holds a PEG ratio of 2.09. 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. Retail - Discount Stores stocks are, on average, holding a PEG ratio of 2.49 based on yesterday's closing prices.
The Retail - Discount Stores industry is part of the Retail-Wholesale sector. With its current Zacks Industry Rank of 68, this industry ranks in the top 28% of all industries, numbering over 250.
The Zacks Industry Rank gauges the strength of our 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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Dollar General Corporation (DG): Free Stock Analysis ReportThis article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).
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