mdtis, I've written this ad nauseam and had absolutely zero responses now for several years and expect to get none in the future. DG is building a slew of stores most simply DG but others with something like a "mart" or whatever additional name and most are within a very small - increasingly small - distance from Walmart. This is true all over the US. In my county there are 27 DG's and all but 3 are within 5.5 miles of a Walmart.

The "stand alone" in a rural community idea sells like hotcakes. The business of building close to Walmart is a more accurate story.

It is a story of store density, not stand alone. Is this going to work?

I have no issue whatsoever in buying DG stock. But I'd love to have an accurate discussion online about this. I think you have to include competition in the analysis, not just go in to endless detail - often meaningless - about particulars of the financial metrics of DG. And above all, the original thesis here of simply charting all the past movements of the stock relative to earnings is not actual analysis of a business in the cross hairs of extremely capable competition. We basically had years of people saying, "Well it was this to earnings and earnings are going up at X and now it is less than it was so it is a buy." And everybody flocked in unison to buy the stock.

Things are changing. Can DG change and compete? Again it isn't the past stock price and PE comparison that matters only. Gunna have to think beyond the quicky to get to where we are here.

Amazed at the lack of discussion now that the stock price has plummeted!