Here’s Why Dollar General (DG) Continued Its Strength in Q2

Thu, Aug 21, 2025, 8:28 AM 3 min read

Artisan Partners, an investment management company, released its “Artisan Value Fund” second-quarter 2025 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. Equity markets faced significant volatility in the second quarter, fueled by the announcement and subsequent pause of the "Liberation Day" tariffs. Against this backdrop, the fund’s Investor Class ARTLX, Advisor Class APDLX, and Institutional Class APHLX returned 5.99%, 5.96%, and 5.96%, respectively, in the second quarter compared to a 3.79% return for the Russell 1000® Value Index. In addition, you can check the top 5 holdings of the strategy to know its best picks in 2025.

In its second-quarter 2025 investor letter, Artisan Value Fund highlighted stocks such as Dollar General Corporation (NYSE:DG). Dollar General Corporation (NYSE:DG) is a discount retailer that provides various merchandise products. The one-month return of Dollar General Corporation (NYSE:DG) was 5.14%, and its shares lost 7.16% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On August 20, 2025, Dollar General Corporation (NYSE:DG) stock closed at $114.85 per share, with a market capitalization of $25.275 billion.

Artisan Value Fund stated the following regarding Dollar General Corporation (NYSE:DG) in its second quarter 2025 investor letter:

"In the consumer staples sector, tobacco company Philip Morris International (PM) and discount retailer Dollar General Corporation (NYSE:DG) continued their strength from Q1. Both stocks are up over 50% year to date. In recent years, DG has dealt with execution issues, rising competition an increasingly constrained lower income consumer after a period of high inflation. However, the company is making progress on fixing operational issues, from store standards to supply-chain execution and labor efficiency. Additionally, with inflation stabilizing, there are early signs that customers have adjusted to higher price levels as basket sizes and units are beginning to rise again. Another dynamic is that DG’s business model is countercyclical. During tougher economic times, DG typically gets trade-down business from middle-income cohorts, and with the possibility that escalating tariffs could slow the economy, investors see DG as a potential beneficiary."

A busy shopping aisle filled with discounted items in a retail store.

Dollar General Corporation (NYSE:DG) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 55 hedge fund portfolios held Dollar General Corporation (NYSE:DG) at the end of the first quarter, which was 53 in the previous quarter. While we acknowledge the potential of Dollar General Corporation (NYSE:DG) as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock.