Why Dollar General Shares Tumbled 31% in the First Half of 2023
Dollar General (NYSE: DG) may have been a winner during -- and even shortly after -- the crisis phases of the COVID-19 pandemic. As the dust continues to settle, though, the discount retailer's underlying problems are increasingly being exposed. And investors' recognition of those helps explain why the stock fell 31.1% through the first six months of this year, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence.
Every retailer struggles with its own unique constellation of challenges. For Dollar General, the biggest headaches involve inventory and personnel: It has too much of the former, and too little of the latter.
Since 2017, the company has been cited many times by the Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for leaving merchandise blocking fire exits as well as for unsafely stacked boxes -- citations that led to more than $15 million in fines. While OSHA's underlying concern is safety, these inventory pile-ups ultimately suggest that the company frequently has more merchandise in its stores than they can effectively handle, and/or doesn't have enough employees in those stores to effectively manage all the goods being shipped to them.
Source Fool.com
