Good store to shop for financially strapped people.

Family Dollar, Big Lots, Dollar Tree? When you are really in a jam you can go to these places. I don't care for Big Lots but I like my Dollar Tree, and if you are on a tight, tight budget, there simply isn't a reason why you wouldn't shop for food at Family Dollar.

From a recent Mad Money show:"All the negative stuff is a vicious overreaction. I think they're OK, but I like Family Dollar Stores (FDO) even better."

Dollar Tree's (DLTR) a tough one because the trade-down theory is at work everywhere except, perhaps, at the ultimate trade-down. I wonder if it is execution, and I know that Family Dollar (FDO) has some margin improvement to come, so it might make a good buy down 2.

Goldman's addition of Dollar Tree (DLTR), a great performer, up 68% year-to-date to its conviction sell list, is another example of downgrades gone wild.

I figure that these are hard times and everyone is trying to save. Where can you get so much for less- the dolla store!

07-DEC'08: Dollar Tree, Inc. -No retail chain will do better (save maybe Walmart) in this economy. Price/share @ start = $34.30

Buy - Price 42 on Nov. 25
by Wedbush Morgan

Q3 EPS of 47 cents...[beat] guidance of 40 cents to 43 cents/consensus 44 cents. Q4 guidance is for $1.07 to $1.15 EPS on sales of $1.38 billion to $1.42 billion, and low to low-mid-single-digit comps [same-store sales] ...Q3 comp of 6.2% versus 1.9% beat our estimated 3%....Strong merchandising, including ability to flex the in-demand consumables category, is attracting new customers....We're raising our full-year E-EPS to $2.50 (from $2.44); guidance is $2.45 to $2.53. Reiterating Buy; we believe DLTR's momentum should continue through the holidays.... Raising target to 44 (from 43), which assumes DLTR should trade at 16.5 times our revised '09E EPS of $2.68 -- a 10% premium to our projected longer-term earnings-growth rate of 15%. Market cap: $3.7 billion.

The largest retailer of items costing a dollar or less was among the most active names on the Nasdaq Tuesday.

1. Dollar Tree (DLTR) and 2. Family Dollar (FDO). Total trade down, makes a ton of sense, can go up for some time. I believe that the possibilities of a mini-bull market in dollar stores are playable on any weakness.

FDO A BETTER PLAY