Subject: Re: DG on sale today
rochish, thank you so much for the reply. I could have done better on my original message, and hopefully flesh out some of my concerns below.

> In 2022, their cash flow was $14.34/share and they had 219,108,477 common shares outstanding. Hence, their cash flow was $3.15 billion. Also, their net income was $2.34 billion. Do you think that is not enough to cover the debt?

I think it is, I'm not worried that they will be insolvent, but I'm worry about the impact reduced cash flow and eps on valuation.

> That has been true for ages, but they still seem to make a boatload of money, which is what matters at the end of the day for the investor
and
> It may be for this reason that Mr. Buffett rarely visits the businesses he invests

I agree! It is why I said "it is a terrible reason not to invest in something, but it has made me pause anyway". And while Buffett says that, BRK also doesn't directly hold DG or DLTR, currently, either (to my knowledge).

Mentioning the state of the stores and that was probably a distraction - I should have expanded on the underlying reason for my concern. I feel like Dollar Tree and Dollar General have made money for a long time arbitraging the USD and CNY exchange rate, while putting bare minimum or lower capex or opex on stores. DG, at least, seemed pretty levered already so I don't know if they have any risk of having to finance capex improvements at bad interest rates or increase opex. They have smart executives at both companies that know their business and their customers, though, and I'm sure they think about this more than I do... but that could have been said for First Republic, SVB, and Signature, too.

> Personally, I'm not good at market timing, so I prefer to snatch deals when they are available without regard to the whole market.

You're right. Another comment I should have omitted or expanded on, and it ended up just being a distraction. I am demonstrably bad at market timing based on my track record, to be blunt. But I still "have a bad feeling" about this market, and that has made me pause - in a purely instinctual and emotional way - catching falling knives lately, not just DG.