The market may be tumbling again on Thursday, but that hasn't stopped the Coles Group Ltd (ASX: COL) share price from pushing higher.
At the time of writing, the supermarket giant's shares are up 0.5% to $17.79.
This means the Coles share price is now up 6.5% since the start of the year, which compares favourably to the performance of the ASX 200 index.
The benchmark index is down 1.2% year to date, which means an outperformance of almost 8%.
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Why is the Coles share price outperforming?
There are a couple of reasons why the Coles share price is outperforming the market this year.
The first is the release of the company's half-year results last month, which went down well with the market.
Coles reported a 3.9% increase in sales revenue to $20.8 billion and an 11.4% jump in net profit after tax to $643 million. This allowed the company's board to declare a 36 cent per share interim dividend, which was up 9.1% year over year.
Also giving the Coles share price a boost has been its defensive qualities. In times of heightened economic and market volatility, companies with defensive earnings appeal to risk averse investors.
Coles has these qualities in spates. You only need to look at its performance during the pandemic to see this.
Can its shares keep rising?
The good news is that one leading broker believes there's still plenty more upside left in the Coles share price.
According to a recent note out of Citi, its analysts have a buy rating and $20.20 price target on its shares. This implies potential upside of almost 14% for investors over the next 12 months.
In addition, Citi is forecasting fully franked dividends of 69 cents per share in FY 2023 and 71 cents per share in FY 2024. This represents attractive yields of 3.9% and 4%, respectively, which make the total potential return on offer with its shares even more sweeter.
