Kroger (KR 0.44%) stock jumped 4.8% through 2:10 p.m. ET Thursday after reporting mixed results for Q4 2025.
Heading into the report, analysts forecast Kroger would earn $1.20 per share, adjusted for one-time items, on quarterly sales of $35 billion. Kroger beat the earnings target with adjusted profit of $1.28, while sales fell a bit short at $34.7 billion.
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Kroger Q4 earnings
Q4 sales increased only 1.2% year over year; Kroger noted that falling fuel costs played a part. Same-store sales "without fuel" grew twice as fast at 2.4%. Operating profit soared 36.6%, and GAAP earnings per share jumped 50% to $1.35, even better than the adjusted number.
For the full year, Kroger did $147.6 billion in total sales, up just 0.3% versus 2024. Again, falling fuel costs had an effect. Ex-fuel, same-store sales increased 2.9% for the year, says Kroger.
Full-year profit fell more than half versus 2024, to $1.54 per share.
Free cash flow for the year was $3.4 billion, nearly twice the $1.8 billion in cash profits generated in 2024.
NYSE: KR
Key Data Points
Is Kroger stock a buy?
On Kroger's $47.2 billion market capitalization, that works out to a price-to-free cash flow ratio of 13.9 -- not bad for a stock that just doubled its annual free cash flow! But can Kroger maintain that rate of turbocharged growth?
Probably not.
Turning to guidance, management foresees sales ex-fuel growing perhaps 1% or 2% in 2026. Earnings will bounce back sharply, to somewhere between $5.10 and $5.30 per share, says management. (Incidentally, this gives the stock a forward P/E ratio of 13.7 -- roughly equal to its current P/FCF ratio).
For the nation's biggest supermarket chain paying a 2% dividend yield, that seems a fair price to me.
