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Dollar General Corp.
DG-N
DON'T BUY
Aug 30, 2024
Stock price when the opinion was issued
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He will never pick a bottom -- there are people who are really good at it, but it's not his strength. Underperforming since January 2023. Bad couple of days on top of a horrible 2 years. Stay away. Weak RSI and broken technicals.
He looks for fundamentals to show that something is changing for the better, accelerating numbers, and price behaviour that supports that view.
Yesterday they reported a fine quarter: beating revenue, 2.4% same-store sales growth (beating) with strength in every major product category, gross margins beat due to a theft crackdown. Earnings beat and were excellent. DG repeated tat they will keep prices low amid Trump tariffs. DG's customer survey revealed that 60% of their customers have less income than a year ago and will sacrifice some necessities in the coming year; this doesn't bode well for the economy, but make dollar stores compelling. DG is seeing more business from middle/high-income earners. Tariffs: DG imports 4% directly from China.
DG dropped significantly after the earnings release and is now trading at 11.8x Forward P/E, a record low compared to historical averages. The reason for the sharp drawdown was mainly due to weak operating results and a downward revision in guidance. In the 2Q, DG’s revenue grew 4% to $10.2B, missing estimates of $10.37B and EPS of $1.7 also missed estimates of $1.79. DG revised guidance in same-store sales down, which is expected to be between 1%-1.6%, a reduction from 2%-2.7% that DG previously forecasted. The company mentioned the weak results were largely due to financially constrained customers, however, both WMT and TGT reported solid numbers a few weeks ago. The balance sheet is leveraged with a net debt/EBITDA of 3.0x, which DG is paying down gradually. DG brought back the old CEO with the hopes that he could turn around the company’s operations, which have decelerated meaningfully in recent years. Overall, a very weak earnings result - we think investors are better off looking somewhere else until DG demonstrates a path to recovery.
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