NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of The Kroger Co. (KR) - Get Report were gaining 4.9% to $73.05 Thursday after the grocery store operator beat analysts' estimates for earnings and revenue in the fourth quarter.

Kroger reported earnings of $1.04 a share for the fourth quarter, above analysts' estimates of 90 cents a share for the quarter. Revenue grew 8.6% year over year to $25.21 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts' estimates of $25.13 billion for the quarter.

Identical supermarket sales grew 6% in the fourth quarter.

The grocery store operator said it expects to report earnings of $3.80 to $3.90 a share for 2015, compared to analysts' estimates of $3.72 a share for the year.

Kroger said it expects identical supermarket sales to grow about 3% to 4% in 2015.

TheStreet Ratings team rates KROGER CO as a Buy with a ratings score of A+. TheStreet Ratings Team has this to say about their recommendation:

"We rate KROGER CO (KR) a BUY. This is based on the convergence of positive investment measures, which should help this stock outperform the majority of stocks that we rate. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its revenue growth, solid stock price performance, growth in earnings per share, increase in net income and good cash flow from operations. We feel these strengths outweigh the fact that the company has had generally high debt management risk by most measures that we evaluated."

You can view the full analysis from the report here: KR Ratings Report

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