Casey's General Stores (CASY) Competitors

Casey's General Stores (NASDAQ:CASY) and AutoNation (NYSE:AN) are both retail/wholesale companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, dividends, risk, valuation, analyst recommendations, profitability, media sentiment, community ranking and earnings.

Which has preferable valuation and earnings, CASY or AN?

AutoNation has higher revenue and earnings than Casey's General Stores. AutoNation is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Casey's General Stores, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Company	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Casey's General Stores	$14.59B	0.84	$446.69M	$12.58	26.37
AutoNation	$26.95B	0.25	$1.02B	$21.09	8.07

Is CASY or AN more profitable?

AutoNation has a net margin of 3.41% compared to Casey's General Stores' net margin of 3.23%. AutoNation's return on equity of 42.44% beat Casey's General Stores' return on equity.

Company	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Casey's General Stores	3.23%	16.70%	7.71%
AutoNation	3.41%	42.44%	8.06%

Which has more volatility and risk, CASY or AN?

Casey's General Stores has a beta of 0.82, suggesting that its stock price is 18% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, AutoNation has a beta of 1.22, suggesting that its stock price is 22% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Does the media favor CASY or AN?

In the previous week, Casey's General Stores had 1 more articles in the media than AutoNation. MarketBeat recorded 7 mentions for Casey's General Stores and 6 mentions for AutoNation. AutoNation's average media sentiment score of 1.15 beat Casey's General Stores' score of 1.09 indicating that AutoNation is being referred to more favorably in the news media.

Company	Very Positive	Positive	Neutral	Negative	Very Negative	Overall Sentiment
Casey's General Stores	4 Very Positive mention(s)	0 Positive mention(s)	1 Neutral mention(s)	0 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive
AutoNation	4 Very Positive mention(s)	1 Positive mention(s)	0 Neutral mention(s)	0 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive

Do analysts recommend CASY or AN?

Casey's General Stores currently has a consensus price target of $312.63, indicating a potential downside of 5.77%. AutoNation has a consensus price target of $178.88, indicating a potential upside of 5.05%. Given AutoNation's higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe AutoNation is more favorable than Casey's General Stores.

Company	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Casey's General Stores	0 Sell rating(s)	3 Hold rating(s)	5 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.63
AutoNation	0 Sell rating(s)	3 Hold rating(s)	4 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.57

Does the MarketBeat Community prefer CASY or AN?

Casey's General Stores received 249 more outperform votes than AutoNation when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 62.71% of users gave Casey's General Stores an outperform vote while only 56.31% of users gave AutoNation an outperform vote.

Company	Underperform	Outperform
Casey's General Stores	Outperform Votes 624 62.71%	Underperform Votes 371 37.29%
AutoNation	Outperform Votes 375 56.31%	Underperform Votes 291 43.69%

Do insiders and institutionals hold more shares of CASY or AN?

85.6% of Casey's General Stores shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 94.6% of AutoNation shares are held by institutional investors. 0.5% of Casey's General Stores shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.7% of AutoNation shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

AutoNation beats Casey's General Stores on 11 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks.