Look, I get it. Everyone’s still drooling over Nvidia and its AI magic tricks. The chip giant is up 36% this year, which is nothing to sneeze at. But while you were busy watching robots learn to paint and write poetry, something hilarious happened: Dollar General just ate Nvidia’s lunch.
Yeah, you read that right. The place where you buy off-brand cereal and questionable energy drinks is up 74% in 2025. That’s double Nvidia’s gains. Sometimes the most boring investments are the ones laughing all the way to the bank.
The Comeback Kid of Retail
Dollar General (DG) was having a rough time for a while there. Margins were getting squeezed, inventory was a mess, and frankly, it looked like another retail casualty waiting to happen. But then something beautiful occurred: they figured their stuff out.
Their latest quarterly numbers were chef’s kiss perfect. Sales jumped 4.6% to $10.6 billion, and earnings shot up 44% to $1.28 per share. That’s not just beating expectations – that’s dunking on them from the free-throw line.
Here’s what’s working: Remember all that theft that was eating into profits? They’ve got that under control now with better security. Plus, people are still pinching pennies, which is Dollar General’s sweet spot. When your grocery bill makes you cry, suddenly that $1 pasta sauce looks pretty appealing.
The Real Estate Empire You Never Noticed
While tech bros were building data centers, DG was quietly building an empire of small-town dominance. They opened 196 new stores just in Q3 and renovated over 1,100 others. With more than 20,900 locations, they’re basically the neighborhood corner store for half of America.
And here’s the kicker: when times get tough, people don’t stop shopping – they just shop smarter. That means trading down from Target to Dollar General, which is exactly what’s happening.
The Bottom Line (Literally)
Look, AI is cool and all, but sometimes the best investments are hiding in plain sight. Dollar General isn’t sexy, it’s not going to Mars, and it definitely won’t help you generate art from your grocery list. But it will make money when people need to stretch their dollars.
With a forward P/E that’s actually reasonable (unlike some AI darlings we could mention), DG is positioned for steady growth as they keep opening stores and people keep needing cheap stuff. Sometimes the tortoise really does beat the hare – especially when the hare is busy trying to achieve artificial general intelligence.
So while everyone else is betting on robots taking over the world, maybe consider betting on humans just trying to save a few bucks on toilet paper. It’s worked out pretty well so far.