Shares of Dollar General Corp. shot up 11.4% in premarket trading Thursday, after the discount home and consumer goods retailer reported fiscal first-quarter profit and sales that beat expectations and provided an upbeat full-year outlook. Net income for the quarter to April 30 fell to $552.7 million, or $2.41 a share, from $677.7 million, or $2.82 a share, in the year-ago period. The FactSet consensus for earnings per share was $2.32. Sales grew 4.2% to $8.75 billion, above the FactSet consensus of $8.71 billion. Cost of sales growth outpaced sales growth, rising 6.5% to $6.02, as gross margin contracted to 31.3% from 32.4%. Same-store sales fell 0.1%, beating the FactSet consensus of a 1.2% decline. “Despite ongoing headwinds due to supply chain pressures and heightened inflation, we remained focused on controlling what we can control and delivered solid financial results, which exceeded our expectations for sales and EPS for the quarter,” said Chief Executive Todd Vasos. For fiscal 2022, the company kept its EPS growth guidance range at 12% to 14%, but bumped up its same-store sales growth guidance to 3.0% to 3.5% from 2.5% and said it now expects sales growth of 10.0% to 10.5% from previous expectations of 10% growth. The company expects to repurchase $2.75 billion worth of its shares in fiscal 2022. The stock has dropped 17.2% year to date through Wednesday, while the S&P 500 has shed 16.5%.
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