Why Kroger Stock Popped Today
Key Points
Kroger beat on earnings but missed on sales this morning.
Wide swings in the price of gasoline are having an outsized effect on sales growth rates.
- 10 stocks we like better than Kroger ›
Kroger (NYSE: KR) 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.
Will AI create the world's first trillionaire? Our team just released a report on the one little-known company, called an "Indispensable Monopoly" providing the critical technology Nvidia and Intel both need. Continue »
Image source: Getty Images.
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.
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.
Should you buy stock in Kroger right now?
Before you buy stock in Kroger, consider this:
The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Kroger wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.
Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $532,066!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,122,072!*
Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 959% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 193% for the S&P 500. Don't miss the latest top 10 list, available with Stock Advisor, and join an investing community built by individual investors for individual investors.
See the 10 stocks »
*Stock Advisor returns as of March 5, 2026.
Rich Smith has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Kroger. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Recommended Articles
