A Look at Casey’s Stock and Dividend Yields

Casey’s General Stores (CASY) stock had an above-average performance in fiscal 2016. The company’s YTD (year-to-date) gains as of August 31, 2016, stood at 13.6%. It has outperformed the S&P 500 index, which has YTD gains of 7.6%.

However, Casey’s convenience store and fuel station peers CST Brands (CST) and Murphy USA (MUSA) have delivered superior performances. The two companies are currently sitting on YTD gains of more than 20%.

Casey’s has a strong cash flow, which it uses to pay dividends to its shareholders. The company has paid regular dividends since 1991 and has increased its dividend per share by around 46% over the last five fiscal years. It increased its dividends by 10% in fiscal 2016 and paid $0.88 per share in dividends during the year.

The company is a dividend aristocrat and is included in the holdings of the ProShares S&P MidCap 400 Dividend Aristocrats (REGL). REGL invests in companies that have increased dividends for at least 15 consecutive years. REGL has around 2.2% of its holdings invested in Casey’s.

Casey’s dividend yield is quite low compared to other dividend aristocrats. Its one-year forward dividend yield is hovering around 0.7% as of August 31, 2016, compared to Walmart (WMT) and Target (TGT) with higher yields of 2.8% and 3.3%, respectively. Both companies are dividend aristocrats and have increased their dividends for 43 and 45 consecutive years, respectively.

In the next part of this series, we’ll look at Wall Street’s outlook on Casey’s and any recent rating changes.