Casey's stock hit a new 52-week high Wednesday, trading at $45.89, above its previous 52-week high of $45.75. Average volume has been 270,000 shares over the past 30 days, according to a report from TheStreet. Shares were up 5.1% year [image-nocss] to date as of the close of trading on Tuesday.
"TheStreet rates Casey's General Stores as a buy," the stock-analysis website noted. "The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its robust revenue growth, notable return on equity, good cash flow from operations, increase in stock price during the past year and growth in earnings per share. We feel these strengths outweigh the fact that the company has had generally poor debt management on most measures that we evaluated."
Attempts by CSP Daily News to contact a Casey's representative for comment were unsuccessful as of deadline.
Zacks Investment Research noted about Casey's this past week, "In the past 52 weeks, shares of Casey's General Stores have traded between a low of $35.39 and a high of $45.75 and are now at $45.82, which is 29% above that low price. SmarTrend currently has shares of Casey's General Stores in an Uptrend and issued the Uptrend alert on April 1, 2011, at $39.19. The stock has risen 14% since the Uptrend alert was issued."
During last year's hostile takeover bid for Casey's General Stores, Laval, Quebec-based Couche-Tard offered up to $38.50 per share, while alternate bidder 7-Eleven Inc., Dallas, bid as high as $43.00 per share.
Prior to Couche-Tard making its bid for Casey's public in April, 2010, Casey's stock was trading for about $32 per share. During the six-month takeover struggle, Casey's stock traded as high as $44.20 per share. Still, Casey's executives promised "share value" well beyond the proposed deals put before them to purchase their shares of the public company.
Couche-Tard ended its bid for Casey's on Oct. 1. Since then, the stock has dipped as low as $36.20 per share. On Friday, the stock price was hovering around $45.60 per share.
Ankeny, Iowa-based Casey's General Stores has approximately 1,620 convenience stores in 11 Midwestern and Great Plains states including: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Wisconsin and Arkansas.
Members help make our journalism possible. Become a CSP member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.