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Kroger (NYSE:KR) delivered another solid beat on earnings on Thursday morning, sending the stock higher. The gain wasn’t dramatic, and neither was the earnings beat, but both were solid and steady. If stocks like Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) are hares, Kroger is a turtle. Investors seeking diversification need to own both.

Quarterly profits for Kroger came in at $428 million, 44 cents per share, on revenues of $25.085 billion.

The profit gain of 19% came on sales rising 5.4%, excluding fuel, and the company guided its estimate on earnings for the full year up from $2.02 per share to $2.04. Including fuel, whose price was down year-over-year, per-store sales were up only 1%.

Shares spiked to as high as $39.33 in early trade before settling back down with the rest of the market to $38.93. The company’s shares had closed at $38.07 on Wednesday. Operating cash flow came in at $3.766 billion for the quarter, up 11% from the $3.384 billion achieved in the same period last year. Like many retailers the company operates on a fiscal year ending in January.

For the year, Kroger is unlikely to report sales larger than Costco (NASDAQ:COST), but it will take its place as the third-largest retail company in the country, behind Costco and Walmart (NYSE:WMT), and the largest grocery and “mainstream” retailer in the country by far. Kroger operates under many names in different parts of the country – it’s King Sooper in Denver, Dillon’s in Kansas City and Harris-Teeter in Charlotte for instance – and runs convenience stores, department stores like Fred Meyer, and jewelry stores as well.

Having noticed Kroger’s performance while writing for this site, I picked up 100 shares for my retirement account in February, and after a stock split, now have a capital gain of 6%, plus another 1.7 shares acquired through reinvested dividends. Not a home run, more like a ground ball with eyes, but a solid performance in a market, where the S&P 500 is basically flat on the year.