American Eagle Outfitters (AEO) Competitors

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

Do analysts recommend AEO or CASY?

American Eagle Outfitters presently has a consensus target price of $14.70, suggesting a potential upside of 48.19%. Casey's General Stores has a consensus target price of $465.25, suggesting a potential downside of 9.94%. Given American Eagle Outfitters' higher possible upside, equities analysts plainly believe American Eagle Outfitters is more favorable than Casey's General Stores.

Company	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
American Eagle Outfitters	1 Sell rating(s)	10 Hold rating(s)	1 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.00
Casey's General Stores	1 Sell rating(s)	3 Hold rating(s)	8 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.58

Which has preferable valuation and earnings, AEO or CASY?

Casey's General Stores has higher revenue and earnings than American Eagle Outfitters. American Eagle Outfitters 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
American Eagle Outfitters	$5.33B	0.32	$329.38M	$0.98	10.12
Casey's General Stores	$15.94B	1.20	$546.52M	$14.64	35.29

Which has more volatility & risk, AEO or CASY?

American Eagle Outfitters has a beta of 1.45, indicating that its stock price is 45% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Casey's General Stores has a beta of 0.69, indicating that its stock price is 31% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Is AEO or CASY more profitable?

American Eagle Outfitters has a net margin of 3.73% compared to Casey's General Stores' net margin of 3.43%. Casey's General Stores' return on equity of 16.28% beat American Eagle Outfitters' return on equity.

Company	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
American Eagle Outfitters	3.73%	13.34%	5.99%
Casey's General Stores	3.43%	16.28%	7.13%

Does the media prefer AEO or CASY?

In the previous week, Casey's General Stores had 12 more articles in the media than American Eagle Outfitters. MarketBeat recorded 20 mentions for Casey's General Stores and 8 mentions for American Eagle Outfitters. Casey's General Stores' average media sentiment score of 1.31 beat American Eagle Outfitters' score of 0.85 indicating that Casey's General Stores is being referred to more favorably in the news media.

Company	Very Positive	Positive	Neutral	Negative	Very Negative	Overall Sentiment
American Eagle Outfitters	3 Very Positive mention(s)	2 Positive mention(s)	2 Neutral mention(s)	1 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive
Casey's General Stores	15 Very Positive mention(s)	0 Positive mention(s)	3 Neutral mention(s)	0 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive

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

97.3% of American Eagle Outfitters shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 85.6% of Casey's General Stores shares are owned by institutional investors. 8.7% of American Eagle Outfitters shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.6% of Casey's General Stores shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Is AEO or CASY a better dividend stock?

American Eagle Outfitters pays an annual dividend of $0.50 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.0%. Casey's General Stores pays an annual dividend of $2.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.4%. American Eagle Outfitters pays out 51.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Casey's General Stores pays out 13.7% 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. American Eagle Outfitters has increased its dividend for 2 consecutive years and Casey's General Stores has increased its dividend for 24 consecutive years.

Summary

Casey's General Stores beats American Eagle Outfitters on 13 of the 19 factors compared between the two stocks.