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— Warren Buffett

A 10-year holding period provides a useful test of whether a stock has truly rewarded patient capital. In the case of Casey’s General Stores, Inc. (NASD: CASY), the results are striking: a $10,000 investment made on 10/27/2016 grew to $65,986.56 by 10/26/2026, assuming dividends were reinvested. That equates to a total return of 560.11% and an average annual return of 20.76%.

For a retailer best known for its convenience stores, fuel sales, and prepared food offering, this performance underscores a broader point about long-term equity returns: durable operating execution, steady expansion, and disciplined capital allocation can compound meaningfully over time, even when current dividend yield is modest.

CASY 10-Year Return Details

CASY 10-Year Return Details
Start date:	10/27/2016	$10,000 10/27/2016   $65,986 10/26/2026
End date:	10/26/2026
Start price/share:	$114.37
End price/share:	$703.93
Starting shares:	87.44
Ending shares:	93.78
Dividends reinvested/share:	$15.08
Total return:	560.11%
Average annual return:	20.76%
Starting investment:	$10,000.00
Ending investment:	$65,986.56

As the table shows, the bulk of the result came from capital appreciation, with dividend reinvestment providing an additional lift through incremental share accumulation. Starting with 87.44 shares, the position grew to 93.78 shares as cash dividends were reinvested over time. The ending value therefore reflects both a much higher share price and a larger share count.

[These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]

What Drove the 10-Year CASY Total Return?

Casey’s General Stores has historically occupied a niche within retail that combines convenience merchandise, motor fuel, and foodservice. That business mix matters. Fuel can drive traffic, while inside sales and prepared food can contribute more attractive margins than gasoline alone. Over long periods, companies that execute well in this format can benefit from recurring local demand, defensible regional scale, and a large installed store base.

For long-term shareholders, strong total return often reflects more than one factor:

• Store base expansion: Unit growth can steadily widen revenue and earnings power.
• Operating leverage: Higher sales across an established network can improve profitability if costs are controlled.
• Dividend reinvestment: Even a relatively low current yield can add to long-run compounding when distributions buy additional shares.
• Valuation re-rating: If the market assigns a higher earnings multiple over time, shareholder returns can exceed underlying earnings growth.

That combination helps explain why a stock does not need to begin with a high dividend yield to produce an excellent total return. In CASY’s case, the dividend contribution was real, but the dominant driver was the increase in the share price.

How Dividend Reinvestment Changed the Outcome

Dividend reinvestment is central to this 10-year return calculation. Over the period, investors received $15.08 per share in cumulative dividends, and those payments were assumed to be reinvested into additional CASY shares using the closing price on each ex-dividend date. That raised the share count from 87.44 to 93.78.

In practical terms, dividend reinvestment improves long-term results in two ways:

• It converts cash distributions into additional equity exposure.
• Those additional shares can then participate in future dividend payments and future share price appreciation.

This is why total return is a more complete performance measure than price return alone. A stock’s quoted share price captures only one part of the shareholder experience; reinvested dividends can materially change the ending value, particularly over longer holding periods.

CASY Dividend Yield and Yield on Cost

Based on the most recent annualized dividend rate of $2.60 per share, CASY has a current yield of approximately 0.37% using the ending share price of $703.93. Measured against the original purchase price of $114.37 per share, that same annualized dividend represents a yield on cost of roughly 2.27%.

Yield on cost can be informative, but it should be interpreted carefully. It illustrates how the income stream on an original investment may grow over time. It does not, however, reflect the return available to a new buyer at the current market price, nor does it substitute for analyzing dividend growth, payout sustainability, or valuation.

Key Takeaways From This CASY Buy-and-Hold Example

For investors reviewing long-term stock performance, this CASY example highlights several durable lessons:

• Total return matters most: Price gains and reinvested dividends should be evaluated together.
• Low yield does not mean low return potential: A modest dividend can still complement strong capital appreciation.
• Time is a force multiplier: Ten years of compounding can produce results that appear disproportionate to annual changes viewed in isolation.
• Business quality drives outcomes: Long-run returns usually trace back to operating performance, capital deployment, and consistency of execution.

A decade-long investment in Casey’s General Stores turned $10,000 into nearly $66,000, making it a notable example of how buy-and-hold investing can work when a company compounds value over time.

“We ignore outlooks and forecasts… we’re lousy at it and we admit it … everyone else is lousy too, but most people won’t admit it.” — Martin Whitman