Family Dollar Stores Inc. (FDO) boosted its fiscal 2009 outlook today as third-quarter results came in ahead of Wall Street expectations.
Shares of this Zacks #3 Rank (“Hold”) stock have jumped nearly 11% today on extraordinarily high volume of approximately 9 million, against the average daily volume of about 2.8 million.
The discount chain now expects earnings between $2.03 and $2.07 per share for the year ending August 2009, compared to earlier prediction of $1.90 to $2.00 per share.
The revised guidance is higher than the consensus estimate of $2.00 per share, which has moved up by 3 cents over the past 2 months.
Meanwhile, the company posted quarterly earnings of 62 cents per share, topping the consensus estimate by more than 5%. The company reported earnings of 46 cents per share in the year-ago quarter.
Sales grew 8.3% to $1.8 billion, as recession-weary customers preferred to shop in discount stores. Same store sales recorded a growth of 6.2%.
“FDO” Free Stock Analysis: Buy? Sell? Hold?
Zacks Investment Research
