Dollar General (NYSE:DG) Given “Sector Weight” Rating at KeyCorp

KeyCorp reaffirmed their sector weight rating on shares of Dollar General (NYSE:DG) in a report published on Wednesday morning,Benzinga reports.

DG has been the topic of several other reports. Melius upgraded shares of Dollar General from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $110.00 price objective on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, April 8th. Oppenheimer upgraded shares of Dollar General from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $130.00 price objective on the stock in a research report on Wednesday. Melius Research upgraded shares of Dollar General from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, April 8th. UBS Group boosted their price objective on shares of Dollar General from $95.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 29th. Finally, Guggenheim boosted their price objective on shares of Dollar General from $100.00 to $105.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 8th. Fifteen equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twelve have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $109.04.

Dollar General Stock Performance

NYSE:DG opened at $113.47 on Wednesday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.15, a current ratio of 1.15 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.78. Dollar General has a fifty-two week low of $66.43 and a fifty-two week high of $135.46. The stock has a market cap of $24.96 billion, a PE ratio of 18.69, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.18 and a beta of 0.26. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $94.88 and its 200-day simple moving average is $82.54.

Dollar General (NYSE:DG) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, June 3rd. The company reported $1.78 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.46 by $0.32. Dollar General had a net margin of 3.33% and a return on equity of 18.85%. The business had revenue of $10.44 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $10.25 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $1.65 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.3% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts expect that Dollar General will post 5.75 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Dollar General Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, July 22nd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, July 8th will be issued a dividend of $0.59 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, July 8th. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.08%. Dollar General’s payout ratio is currently 46.18%.

Insider Transactions at Dollar General

In other news, EVP Emily C. Taylor sold 809 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $94.72, for a total transaction of $76,628.48. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 48,532 shares in the company, valued at $4,596,951.04. This represents a 1.64% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Insiders own 0.56% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Dollar General

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in Dollar General by 4.8% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 26,433,202 shares of the company’s stock worth $2,324,271,000 after purchasing an additional 1,201,917 shares in the last quarter. Pzena Investment Management LLC increased its position in Dollar General by 8.5% during the 1st quarter. Pzena Investment Management LLC now owns 12,770,542 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,122,914,000 after purchasing an additional 1,003,206 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its position in Dollar General by 2.3% during the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 5,361,216 shares of the company’s stock worth $405,425,000 after purchasing an additional 118,204 shares in the last quarter. First Eagle Investment Management LLC acquired a new stake in Dollar General during the 4th quarter worth approximately $399,433,000. Finally, ACR Alpine Capital Research LLC grew its position in Dollar General by 3.9% in the first quarter. ACR Alpine Capital Research LLC now owns 4,197,437 shares of the company’s stock valued at $369,081,000 after acquiring an additional 155,966 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 91.77% of the company’s stock.

Dollar General Company Profile

Dollar General Corporation, a discount retailer, provides various merchandise products in the southern, southwestern, midwestern, and eastern United States. It offers consumable products, including paper and cleaning products, such as paper towels, bath tissues, paper dinnerware, trash and storage bags, disinfectants, and laundry products; packaged food comprising cereals, pasta, canned soups, fruits and vegetables, condiments, spices, sugar, and flour; and perishables that include milk, eggs, bread, refrigerated and frozen food, beer, and wine.