Casey's General Stores Falls on Q4 Results

Casey's General Stores CASY released its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings results on Thursday after the closing bell. The company missed both Wall Street earnings and revenue estimates and the stock was trading down around 3 percent in the after-hours. Chief Executive Robert Myers said, "A difficult cigarette environment and challenging weather comparisons adversely impacted sales during fiscal 2013. However, in the fourth quarter we saw strong sales gains with the recent implementation of a "fuel saver" program in partnership with Hy-Vee grocery stores and competitive cigarette pricing adjustments made earlier in the fiscal year. We expect this momentum will continue into fiscal 2014." For Q4, Casey's reported net income of $23.27 million or $0.60 per share, compared to $23.07 million or $0.60 per share, in the year ago period. This missed Street consensus EPS estimates of $0.62. Total revenue in the quarter was $1.81 billion from $1.75 billion last year. This also came up short of analysts' consensus estimates of $1.83 billion.