$128 came in. I honestly didn't think it would get that low. Will it hold? WS apparently hates the stock.
It wasn't a bad report really, but they can always go lower. They own a lot of real estate. In small towns. I like that. And those store are by far and away their cash-cows. That's their bread and butter. They built too many stores too fast, and a lot of those are in areas where getting and keeping decent employees is tough. Small towns in flyover America... that however is not the case at all. Groceries came in strong. They mark that stuff way up, and people pay up for the convenience. A gallon of milk would be $3.75 at DG, and the same gallon will cost $2.25 or less at WMT or KR. But who wants to deal with WMT for a gallon of milk?
I see a lot of inventory that imo will never be sold. They don't need to be allocating valuable aisle space to 30% of the stuff in their stores. So there is a lot of room for improvement, but I think they realize that now. Which is always possible. This ceo though... he knows what's up and what needs to fixed. Pretty sure.
One thing's for sure, they're not going away, and I think they have way better management and supply chains than DLTR has... which went up on earnings. Family Dollar Stores don't even compare.
So they're still building new stores, strategically, closing some nightmare stores, and upgrading others with more refrigerated space. Good move. Dump the inventory that doesn't sell to Ollies or Biglots... I mean really... like lawn chairs?! Duh. Wasted space.
$128. We'll see what happens. PE of about 18... in line with most of the S&P. At least they make money, and I think management has a fire lit under their asses. There's a lot worse stocks out there, but this one is a WS "show us the turn-around" type. I think management will come thru. They've seen the light. The turn-around is already happening. It really is, or I would not say that. This stock is my specimen , I pay a lot of attention and go out of my way to grace various locations for that very reason. A long history of commentary about it here on ET. We nailed the short at $257 or whatever it was... I even warned off Karen F. on cnbc at $$220-ish, if she read the post. The stores were a mess.
~Peter Lynch reporting.
