I remain upbeat about the shares of Kroger, one of the US largest grocery retailers. A dominant position in its sector allows Kroger to expand its store base and boost market share through product launches, while the company’s strong corporate and national brands help to garner customers’ loyalty. Moreover, Kroger’s Customer 1st strategy enriches shopping experience, convincing buyers to return to the store. We believe the company to sustain its earnings growth momentum with the help of this plan and through its cost-containment efforts. Kroger’s fiscal 2015 third quarter financials were solid. Excluding fuel center sales, revenues rose 5.5% driven by identical supermarket sales growth of 5.4%. Kroger now envisions comparable sales (excluding fuel) improvement of 4-4.5% for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2015, resulting in annual growth rate of about 5-5.25% for fiscal full year. Kroger’s FQ3 operating income jumped 18.6%, and operating margin expanded 50 basis points to 3.1%. Adjusted earnings per share surged 22.9% to 43 cents beating analysts’ average projection of 39 cents. Kroger now forecasts fiscal full year 2015 EPS in the range of $2.02-2.04, up from $1.92-1.98 expected earlier. To note, the new range exceeds the company’s long-term EPS growth rate guidance of 8-11%. I believe that Kroger has enormous opportunities to augment identical supermarket sales, alleviate gross margin pressure, improve operating margin and enhance return on invested capital. Besides, the company remains shareholder friendly as its free cash flow generating ability has facilitated it to return over $1.1 bn to stakeholders via dividends and share repurchases in the last four quarters. I'd buy Kroger’s shares on breaking the $42.5 resistance level, with short-term target at $45. $KR, Kroger Company (The) / 1440