Kroger Co (NYSE:KR) stock was on the rise Thursday on an optimistic outlook for the holidays.

Kroger Co says that it is expecting earnings per share for the year to range from $2.00 to $2.05. Based on its earnings per share of $1.41 for the first three quarter of 2017, this means it expects fourth quarter earnings per share to range from 59 cents to 64 cents for the quarter. Wall Street is looking for earnings per share of 60 cents for the period.

Kroger Co also notes that it is expecting identical supermarket sales growth for the fourth quarter of the year to be above 1.1%. This excludes the company’s fuel sales for that quarter.

“The holidays are always Kroger’s time to shine. In fact, we had our best ever Black Friday results for general merchandise, led by record sales at Fred Meyer,” Rodney McMullen, Chairman and CEO of Kroger Co, said in a statement. ‘We remain confident in our ability to continue to grow identical supermarket store sales and market share for the balance of the year and in 2018.”

Kroger Co’s positive outlook for the fourth quarter of the year came with a strong third quarter earnings report. This includes earnings per share of 44 cents on revenue of $27.75 billion. This was good news for KR stock as analysts were looking for earnings per share of 40 cents on revenue of $27.46 billion for the quarter.

KR stock was up 9% as of Thursday afternoon, but is down 26% year-to-date.

As of this writing, William White did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.