Dollar General Corp. (NYSE: DG) remains king of the dollar store theme. The retailer is also expected to report earnings before the market opens on Thursday morning. The big question is whether Dollar Tree Inc. (NASDAQ: DLTR) and Family Dollar Stores Inc. (NYSE: FDO) will merge, or if Dollar General will win in its bid to acquire Family Dollar.

Ahead of earnings, Dollar General is within 1% of its all-time high. Thomson Reuters has consensus estimates of $0.80 in earnings per share and $4.76 billion in revenues for the third quarter. Those numbers would compare to results from a year ago of $0.72 in earnings per share and $4.38 billion in revenues.

If Dollar General offers up guidance for the quarter ahead, those consensus analyst estimates are $1.17 in earnings per share and $4.95 billion in revenues.

For a comparison of size, Dollar General’s expected 2014 total annual revenue is $18.96 billion. That is against $10.85 billion for Family Dollar and against $8.6 billion for Dollar Tree. In short, Dollar General is trying to prevent the other two companies from merging into an equal competitor. The risk if Dollar General wins in its acquisition hope is that it will be exponentially larger than peers in the dollar store and discount space.

The Dollar General chart has been of little help in analysis because shares are within $1 of all-time highs. Still, at $67 or so currently, this $66 to $67 level has been acting as resistance in the past few days. The prior resistance level had been $64 or so, but that was in August and September.

Options traders appear to be braced for a move of $2.25 or so, based on the closest speculative options strike prices.

Dollar General’s 52-week trading range has been $53.00 to $67.95, and the consensus analyst price target is almost $72. Here is how Dollar General compares against peers in forward earnings valuations:

• Dollar General trades at 16.7 times expected 2015 earnings per share, versus 23 times for Family Dollar and 19 times for Dollar Tree.

Until this merger saga is clarified, evaluating the Dollar Store segment of the economy is no simple task — with or without earnings.

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