Reviewing Casey’s General Stores (NASDAQ:CASY) & Maplebear (NASDAQ:CART)

Casey’s General Stores (NASDAQ:CASY) and Maplebear (NASDAQ:CART) are both large-cap consumer staples companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their valuation, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, dividends, profitability, earnings and risk.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and recommmendations for Casey’s General Stores and Maplebear, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Casey’s General Stores	0	5	16	0	2.76
Maplebear	0	15	7	0	2.32

Casey’s General Stores currently has a consensus target price of $835.38, suggesting a potential upside of 21.48%. Maplebear has a consensus target price of $59.06, suggesting a potential upside of 1.61%. Given Casey’s General Stores’ stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities analysts clearly believe Casey’s General Stores is more favorable than Maplebear.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Casey’s General Stores and Maplebear”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Casey’s General Stores	$17.56 billion	1.45	$714.45 million	$20.76	33.12
Maplebear	$3.74 billion	3.68	$447.00 million	$1.92	30.27

Casey’s General Stores has higher revenue and earnings than Maplebear. Maplebear 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.

Volatility and Risk

Casey’s General Stores has a beta of 0.59, indicating that its share price is 41% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Maplebear has a beta of 0.68, indicating that its share price is 32% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

85.6% of Casey’s General Stores shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 63.1% of Maplebear shares are held by institutional investors. 0.7% of Casey’s General Stores shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 24.0% of Maplebear shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares Casey’s General Stores and Maplebear’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Casey’s General Stores	4.14%	19.68%	8.77%
Maplebear	11.59%	22.14%	15.17%

Summary

Casey’s General Stores beats Maplebear on 8 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Casey’s General Stores

Casey’s General Stores, Inc. engages in the provision of management and operation of convenience stores and gasoline stations. It provides self-service gasoline, a wide selection of grocery items, and an array of freshly prepared food items. The firm offers food, beverages, tobacco products, health and beauty aids, automotive products, and other non-food items. The company was founded by Donald F. Lamberti in 1968 and is headquartered in Ankeny, IA.

About Maplebear

Maplebear Inc., doing business as Instacart, engages in the provision of online grocery shopping services to households in North America. It sells and delivers grocery products, as well as pickup services through a mobile application and website. It also operates virtual convenience stores; and provides software-as-a-service solutions to retailers. The company was incorporated in 2012 and is based in San Francisco, California.