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How to buy Kansas City Southern stock
Own Kansas City Southern stock in just a few minutes.
Kansas City Southern is a railroads business based in the US. Kansas City Southern shares (KSU) are listed on the NYSE and all prices are listed in US Dollars. Kansas City Southern employs 6,522 staff and has a trailing 12-month revenue of around USD$2.6 billion.
How to buy shares in Kansas City Southern
- Compare share trading platforms. If you're a beginner, look for a platform with low commissions, expert ratings and investment tools to track your portfolio. Narrow down top brands with our comparison table.
- Open and fund your brokerage account. Complete an application with your personal and financial details, like your ID and bank information. Fund your account with a bank transfer, credit card or debit card.
- Search for Kansas City Southern. Find the stock by name or ticker symbol: KSU. Research its history to confirm it's a solid investment against your financial goals.
- Purchase now or later. Buy today with a market order or use a limit order to delay your purchase until Kansas City Southern reaches your desired price. To spread out your purchase, look into dollar-cost averaging, which smooths out buying at consistent intervals and amounts.
- Decide on how many to buy. Weigh your budget against a diversified portfolio that can minimize risk through the market's ups and downs. You may be able to buy a fractional share of Kansas City Southern, depending on your broker.
- Check in on your investment. Congratulations, you own a part of Kansas City Southern. Optimize your portfolio by tracking how your stock — and even the business — performs with an eye on the long term. You may be eligible for dividends and shareholder voting rights on directors and management that can affect your stock.
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What's in this guide?
- KSU shares summary
- Compare share dealing platforms
- Is KSU stock a buy or sell?
- Stock performance over time
- Can I short KSU shares?
- Is KSU suitable for ethical investing?
- Are KSU shares over-valued?
- Kansas City Southern's financials
- How volatile are KSU shares?
- Does Kansas City Southern pay a dividend?
- Have KSU shares ever split?
- Other common questions
Kansas City Southern share price
Use our graph to track the performance of KSU stocks over time.Kansas City Southern shares at a glance
Information last updated 2021-02-23.
| 52-week range | USD$92.2174 - USD$222.6299 |
|---|---|
| 50-day moving average | USD$210.3044 |
| 200-day moving average | USD$192.4174 |
| Wall St. target price | USD$238.39 |
| PE ratio | 32.5107 |
| Dividend yield | USD$1.64 (0.77%) |
| Earnings per share (TTM) | USD$6.54 |
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The value of any investment can go up or down depending on news, trends and market conditions. We are not investment advisers, so do your own due diligence to understand the risks before you invest.
Is it a good time to buy Kansas City Southern stock?
The technical analysis gauge below displays real-time ratings for the timeframes you select. This is not a recommendation, however. It represents a technical analysis based on the most popular technical indicators: Moving Averages, Oscillators and Pivots. Finder might not concur and takes no responsibility.
This chart is not advice or a guarantee of success. Rather, it gauges the real-time recommendations of three popular technical indicators: moving averages, oscillators and pivots. Finder is not responsible for how your stock performs.
Is Kansas City Southern under- or over-valued?
Valuing Kansas City Southern stock is incredibly difficult, and any metric has to be viewed as part of a bigger picture of Kansas City Southern's overall performance. However, analysts commonly use some key metrics to help gauge the value of a stock.
Kansas City Southern's P/E ratio
Kansas City Southern's current share price divided by its per-share earnings (EPS) over a 12-month period gives a "trailing price/earnings ratio" of roughly 33x. In other words, Kansas City Southern shares trade at around 33x recent earnings.
That's relatively high compared to, say, the trailing 12-month P/E ratio for the NASDAQ 100 at the end of 2019 (27.29). The high P/E ratio could mean that investors are optimistic about the outlook for the shares or simply that they're over-valued.
Kansas City Southern's PEG ratio
Kansas City Southern's "price/earnings-to-growth ratio" can be calculated by dividing its P/E ratio by its growth – to give 1.8438. A low ratio can be interpreted as meaning the shares offer better value, while a higher ratio can be interpreted as meaning the shares offer worse value.
The PEG ratio provides a broader view than just the P/E ratio, as it gives more insight into Kansas City Southern's future profitability. By accounting for growth, it could also help you if you're comparing the share prices of multiple high-growth companies.
Kansas City Southern's EBITDA
Kansas City Southern's EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) is USD$1.4 billion.
The EBITDA is a measure of a Kansas City Southern's overall financial performance and is widely used to measure a its profitability.
Kansas City Southern financials
| Revenue TTM | USD$2.6 billion |
|---|---|
| Operating margin TTM | 39.45% |
| Gross profit TTM | USD$1.4 billion |
| Return on assets TTM | 6.57% |
| Return on equity TTM | 13.56% |
| Profit margin | 23.44% |
| Book value | $44.502 |
| Market capitalisation | USD$19.3 billion |
TTM: trailing 12 months
Shorting Kansas City Southern shares
There are currently 1.1 million Kansas City Southern shares held short by investors – that's known as Kansas City Southern's "short interest". This figure is 4.3% down from 1.1 million last month.
There are a few different ways that this level of interest in shorting Kansas City Southern shares can be evaluated.
Kansas City Southern's "short interest ratio" (SIR)
Kansas City Southern's "short interest ratio" (SIR) is the quantity of Kansas City Southern shares currently shorted divided by the average quantity of Kansas City Southern shares traded daily (recently around 813029.32330827). Kansas City Southern's SIR currently stands at 1.33. In other words for every 100,000 Kansas City Southern shares traded daily on the market, roughly 1330 shares are currently held short.
However Kansas City Southern's short interest can also be evaluated against the total number of Kansas City Southern shares, or, against the total number of tradable Kansas City Southern shares (the shares that aren't held by "insiders" or major long-term shareholders – also known as the "float"). In this case Kansas City Southern's short interest could be expressed as 0.01% of the outstanding shares (for every 100,000 Kansas City Southern shares in existence, roughly 10 shares are currently held short) or 0.0136% of the tradable shares (for every 100,000 tradable Kansas City Southern shares, roughly 14 shares are currently held short).
Such a low SIR usually points to an optimistic outlook for the share price, with fewer people currently willing to bet against Kansas City Southern.
Find out more about how you can short Kansas City Southern stock.
Kansas City Southern's environmental, social and governance track record
Environmental, social and governance (known as ESG) criteria are a set of three factors used to measure the sustainability and social impact of companies like Kansas City Southern.
When it comes to ESG scores, lower is better, and lower scores are generally associated with lower risk for would-be investors.
Kansas City Southern's total ESG risk score
Total ESG risk: 23
Socially conscious investors use ESG scores to screen how an investment aligns with their worldview, and Kansas City Southern's overall score of 23 (as at 01/01/2019) is pretty good – landing it in it in the 32nd percentile of companies rated in the same sector.
ESG scores are increasingly used to estimate the level of risk a company like Kansas City Southern is exposed to within the areas of "environmental" (carbon footprint, resource use etc.), "social" (health and safety, human rights etc.), and "governance" (anti-corruption, tax transparency etc.).
Kansas City Southern's environmental score
Environmental score: 8.17/100
Kansas City Southern's environmental score of 8.17 puts it squarely in the 3rd percentile of companies rated in the same sector. This could suggest that Kansas City Southern is a leader in its sector terms of its environmental impact, and exposed to a lower level of risk.
Kansas City Southern's social score
Social score: 8.49/100
Kansas City Southern's social score of 8.49 puts it squarely in the 3rd percentile of companies rated in the same sector. This could suggest that Kansas City Southern is a leader in its sector when it comes to taking good care of its workforce and the communities it impacts.
Kansas City Southern's governance score
Governance score: 4.84/100
Kansas City Southern's governance score puts it squarely in the 3rd percentile of companies rated in the same sector. That could suggest that Kansas City Southern is a leader in its sector when it comes to responsible management and strategy, and exposed to a lower level of risk.
Kansas City Southern's controversy score
Controversy score: 2/5
ESG scores also evaluate any incidences of controversy that a company has been involved in. Kansas City Southern scored a 2 out of 5 for controversy – the second-highest score possible, reflecting that Kansas City Southern has, for the most part, managed to keep its nose clean.
Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) summary
Kansas City Southern was last rated for ESG on: 2019-01-01.
| Total ESG score | 23 |
|---|---|
| Total ESG percentile | 31.62 |
| Environmental score | 8.17 |
| Environmental score percentile | 3 |
| Social score | 8.49 |
| Social score percentile | 3 |
| Governance score | 4.84 |
| Governance score percentile | 3 |
| Level of controversy | 2 |
Kansas City Southern share dividends
Dividend payout ratio: 25.57% of net profits
Recently Kansas City Southern has paid out, on average, around 25.57% of net profits as dividends. That has enabled analysts to estimate a "forward annual dividend yield" of 1.01% of the current stock value. This means that over a year, based on recent payouts (which are sadly no guarantee of future payouts), Kansas City Southern shareholders could enjoy a 1.01% return on their shares, in the form of dividend payments. In Kansas City Southern's case, that would currently equate to about $1.64 per share.
While Kansas City Southern's payout ratio might seem fairly standard, it's worth remembering that Kansas City Southern may be investing much of the rest of its net profits in future growth.
Kansas City Southern's most recent dividend payout was on 7 April 2021. The latest dividend was paid out to all shareholders who bought their shares by 5 March 2021 (the "ex-dividend date").
Have Kansas City Southern's shares ever split?
Kansas City Southern's shares were split on a 1:2 basis on 13 July 2000. So if you had owned 2 shares the day before before the split, the next day you'd have owned 1 share. This wouldn't directly have changed the overall worth of your Kansas City Southern shares – just the quantity. However, indirectly, the new 100% higher share price could have impacted the market appetite for Kansas City Southern shares which in turn could have impacted Kansas City Southern's share price.
Kansas City Southern share price volatility
Over the last 12 months, Kansas City Southern's shares have ranged in value from as little as $92.2174 up to $222.6299. A popular way to gauge a stock's volatility is its "beta".
Beta is a measure of a share's volatility in relation to the market. The market (NYSE average) beta is 1, while Kansas City Southern's is 1.0059. This would suggest that Kansas City Southern's shares are a little bit more volatile than the average for this exchange and represent, relatively-speaking, a slightly higher risk (but potentially also market-beating returns).
Kansas City Southern overview
Kansas City Southern, a transportation holding company, provides domestic and international rail transportation services in North America. The company serves a ten-state region in the Midwest and southeast regions of the United States and has the shortest north/south rail route between Kansas City, Missouri, and ports along the Gulf of Mexico in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. It operates a commercial corridor of the Mexican railroad system and has its direct rail passageway between Mexico City and Laredo, Texas. The company provides rail access to the United States and Mexico border crossing at Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas; and controls and operates the southern half of the rail bridge at Laredo, Texas, as well as the northern half of this bridge. Kansas City Southern also offers rail access to the port of Lazaro Cardenas on the Pacific Ocean; and owns a 160-mile rail line extending from Laredo, Texas to the port city of Corpus Christi, Texas. Its rail network comprises approximately 7,100 route miles extending from the Midwest and Southeast portions of the United States south into Mexico. The company serves the chemical and petroleum, industrial and consumer products, agriculture and minerals, energy, intermodal, and automotive markets. Kansas City Southern was founded in 1887 and is headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri.
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