Family Dollar Stores (NYSE: FDO), a retailer that competes with Dollar Tree (NASDAQ: DLTR) and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT), reported earnings for the first quarter on Wednesday, and the market couldn't have been happier. As I was writing this, the stock was trading up over 13% on very nice volume. But, is 13 an unlucky number in this case? Would those buying in now be buying in too high?

Well, I can understand the euphoria surrounding the stock rise. To begin with, Q1 earnings beat estimates by two pennies. They came in at $0.42 per share, and that represented a double-digit growth rate for the bottom line of over 13% (there's that unlucky number again!). Top-line sales of approximately $1.8 billion essentially met expectations. When you think of Family Dollar's business and marketing model, you can understand why it's doing well. We're in one of the worst recessions ever, and people are looking for cheap prices on everything. I'm not the biggest fan of dollar-store businesses (for instance, I don't think I'd buy foodstuffs for a buck), but I do shop at them from time to time and can appreciate the allure. I think you can also understand why the stock is performing as well as it has been today: on top of the earnings beat, Family Dollar was the greatest S&P stock story of 2008 according to this source.

Here's the big question on everyone's mind: Is Family Dollar still a buy? If you're currently trading strength, I think you could buy this one after a pullback and then ride the stock to its 52-week high of over $32 per share. I see no reason why it won't make that level, especially if economic conditions continue to worsen (did I say if?). However, I certainly wouldn't be a buyer of today's rally. I think there's momentum behind this name, but I'll say this -- there are probably better bargains out there for any profit you might make from a trade on Family Dollar. So if you do make some bucks on it (pun intended), I'd probably take the profits and allocate them elsewhere. I'm just not sure that Family Dollar will be the best performer in '09 as well.

Disclosure: I don't own any company mentioned, but positions can change without notice.