Casey's General Stores (CASY) Competitors

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

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

85.6% of Casey's General Stores shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.6% of Casey's General Stores shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 1.8% of Lithia Motors shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Do analysts rate CASY or LAD?

Casey's General Stores presently has a consensus price target of $408.25, indicating a potential downside of 1.38%. Lithia Motors has a consensus price target of $353.80, indicating a potential downside of 4.77%. Given Casey's General Stores' higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe Casey's General Stores is more favorable than Lithia Motors.

Company	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Casey's General Stores	1 Sell rating(s)	3 Hold rating(s)	8 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.58
Lithia Motors	0 Sell rating(s)	4 Hold rating(s)	6 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.60

Is CASY or LAD a better dividend stock?

Casey's General Stores pays an annual dividend of $2.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.5%. Lithia Motors pays an annual dividend of $2.12 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.6%. Casey's General Stores pays out 14.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Lithia Motors pays out 7.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. Casey's General Stores has raised its dividend for 24 consecutive years and Lithia Motors has raised its dividend for 15 consecutive years. Lithia Motors is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Is CASY or LAD more profitable?

Casey's General Stores has a net margin of 3.40% compared to Lithia Motors' net margin of 2.31%. Casey's General Stores' return on equity of 17.07% beat Lithia Motors' return on equity.

Company	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Casey's General Stores	3.40%	17.07%	8.12%
Lithia Motors	2.31%	12.95%	3.76%

Which has more risk & volatility, CASY or LAD?

Casey's General Stores has a beta of 0.79, suggesting that its share price is 21% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Lithia Motors has a beta of 1.63, suggesting that its share price is 63% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Does the media prefer CASY or LAD?

In the previous week, Lithia Motors had 1 more articles in the media than Casey's General Stores. MarketBeat recorded 12 mentions for Lithia Motors and 11 mentions for Casey's General Stores. Casey's General Stores' average media sentiment score of 1.35 beat Lithia Motors' score of 0.77 indicating that Casey's General Stores is being referred to more favorably in the media.

Company	Very Positive	Positive	Neutral	Negative	Very Negative	Overall Sentiment
Casey's General Stores	10 Very Positive mention(s)	0 Positive mention(s)	1 Neutral mention(s)	0 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive
Lithia Motors	7 Very Positive mention(s)	3 Positive mention(s)	1 Neutral mention(s)	0 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive

Which has preferable valuation & earnings, CASY or LAD?

Lithia Motors has higher revenue and earnings than Casey's General Stores. Lithia Motors 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	$15.09B	1.02	$501.97M	$13.74	30.13
Lithia Motors	$31.04B	0.32	$1.00B	$29.30	12.68

Does the MarketBeat Community prefer CASY or LAD?

Casey's General Stores received 156 more outperform votes than Lithia Motors when rated by MarketBeat users. However, 66.53% of users gave Lithia Motors an outperform vote while only 63.05% of users gave Casey's General Stores an outperform vote.

Company	Underperform	Outperform
Casey's General Stores	Outperform Votes 645 63.05%	Underperform Votes 378 36.95%
Lithia Motors	Outperform Votes 489 66.53%	Underperform Votes 246 33.47%

Summary

Casey's General Stores beats Lithia Motors on 11 of the 21 factors compared between the two stocks.