Costco stock: buy or sell?
Updated on:
September 20th, 2019
5
Costco Wholesale Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, operates membership warehouses. It offers branded and private-label products in a range of merchandise categories.
Should I buy Costco stock?
Even if you are a experienced or a novel trader, best trading results come from using an investing strategy that never leaves to random or subjective opinions when is the best moment to buy or sell stocks. That's why is so important to define your own trading plan that matches with your character as inversor. There are thousands of trading strategies for you to choose, but at Stocks2.com we prefer those that are simple but successful.None of our preferred buy setups matches with Costco Wholesale stock situation right now, hence this is not a suitable entry point.
| Buy setup | Elegible |
|---|---|
| New all-time high | No |
| New 52 week high | No |
| Price crossing up 200d MA | No |
| 100d MA crossing up 200d MA | No |
Is Costco Wholesale stock a buy?
Everyday, hundreds of stock ratings are posted by financial analysts to indicate a particular stock's attractiveness.
At Stocks2.com, we detected 15 ratings published for COST stock in the last 30 days. The general sentiment of these ratings is bullish for COST stock, with 11 positive ratings.| Date | Analyst / Broker | Previous rating | Current rating |
| 2019-9-9 | UBS Group | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-9-9 | JPMorgan Chase & Co. | n/a | Overweight |
| 2019-9-6 | Wells Fargo & Co | n/a | Market Perform |
| 2019-9-6 | Stifel Nicolaus | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-9-6 | Loop Capital | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-9-20 | Gordon Haskett | Hold | Accumulate |
| 2019-9-2 | Liberum Capital | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-9-11 | Oppenheimer | Outperform | Market Perform |
| 2019-8-21 | Liberum Capital | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-8-19 | Peel Hunt | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-7-18 | Raymond James | n/a | Outperform |
| 2019-7-11 | Stifel Nicolaus | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-7-11 | Robert W. Baird | n/a | Outperform |
| 2019-7-11 | Nomura | n/a | Neutral |
| 2019-7-11 | Loop Capital | n/a | Buy |
Costco stock analysis
Daily outlook
Costco Wholesale declined a bad -0.51% and closed at $286.36.
Costco Wholesale shares declined -0.51% to $286.36 today. COST marked a lower low and a lower high in the short term, defining a downward trend. Climbing above $294.07 would break this short term down trend and open possibilities for reversing this situation. On May, SMA100d and SMA200d crossed up triggering a rise of 15.56%. On September/9, COST hit a new all time high, pushing higher than on Sep/6 tops. Check different trading setups that use ATHs as triggers. On Aug/15 COST price bounced up over the SMA of 50 days demonstrating to be a significant support for this stock.
Weekly outlook
Costco Wholesale shares declined -1.90% this week, ending at $286.36. Late August COST rocketed a dazzling 7.24% in just one week.
In a weekly time frame, Costco Wholesale stock is drawing an uptrend with rising tops and bottoms. Now trading in between its last bottom and last top, COST might consolidate in a flat-base, waiting to break out over or down under . Not so far away is the last price record Costco Wholesale marked last week. Since early May when SMA20w and SMA40w crossed up, COST price gained $42.94 per share (17.64%). Since price and SMA40w lines crossed up late February, COST climbed $71.13 (33.05%).
Costco stock price history
Costco stock went public on July 9th, 1986 with a price of $7.831. Since then, COST stock surged a 3,557.20%, with a yearly average of 107.80%. If you had invested $1,000 in Costco stock in 1986, it would worth $35,572.00 today.
1: Adjusted price after possible price splits or reverse-splits.
Costco stock historical price chart
COST stock reached all-time highs on September 9th with a price of $307.34.
Costco stock price target is $305.00
How much a stock will be priced tomorrow or next week is quite unpredictable However, banks and other financial institutions analysts, with the help of lots of data and algorithms do their best to predict the stock prices movement. You should not follow the analysts' COST stock price predictions in the hope that they will be met as they may be wrong and not met. For the last 30 days we found 12 price targets for COST stock:| Date | Analyst / Broker | Action | Previous target | Current target | Diff |
| 2019-9-9 | UBS Group | Raises Target | $280.00 | $335.00 | 19.6% |
| 2019-9-9 | JPMorgan Chase & Co. | Raises Target | $271.00 | $330.00 | 21.8% |
| 2019-9-6 | Wells Fargo & Co | Raises Target | $240.00 | $290.00 | 20.8% |
| 2019-9-6 | Stifel Nicolaus | Raises Target | $289.00 | $310.00 | 7.3% |
| 2019-9-6 | Loop Capital | Raises Target | n/a | $330.00 | - |
| 2019-9-20 | Gordon Haskett | Upgrades | $255.00 | $330.00 | 29.4% |
| 2019-9-11 | Oppenheimer | Downgrades | $295.00 | $300.00 | 1.7% |
| 2019-7-18 | Raymond James | Raises Target | $260.00 | $300.00 | 15.4% |
| 2019-7-11 | Stifel Nicolaus | Raises Target | $261.00 | $289.00 | 10.7% |
| 2019-7-11 | Robert W. Baird | Raises Target | $270.00 | $290.00 | 7.4% |
| 2019-7-11 | Nomura | Raises Target | $235.00 | $256.00 | 8.9% |
| 2019-7-11 | Loop Capital | Raises Target | n/a | $300.00 | - |
| (in average) | $265.60 | $305.00 | 15.0% |
Financials and fundamental analysis
Earnings date and Earnings per Share
Costco Wholesale presented impressive results for 2019-Q1 on March. Costco Wholesale boosted Earnings per Share (EPS) by 20.40%, beating analysts of $1.67. Costco Wholesale posted $2.01.| Quarter | Reporting date | Estimated EPS | Actual EPS | Surprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-Q2 | - | n/a | 1.59 | n/a |
| 2017-Q3 | - | n/a | 2.08 | n/a |
| 2017-Q4 | 2018-03-07 | 1.47 | 1.59 | 8.2% |
| 2018-Q1 | 2018-03-07 | 1.45 | 1.42 | -2.1% |
| 2018-Q2 | 2018-05-31 | 1.68 | 1.7 | 1.2% |
| 2018-Q3 | 2018-10-04 | 2.34 | 2.36 | 0.9% |
| 2018-Q4 | 2018-12-13 | 1.62 | 1.61 | -0.6% |
| 2019-Q1 | 2019-03-07 | 1.67 | 2.01 | 20.4% |
| 2019-Q2 | - | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| 2019-Q3 | - | n/a | n/a | n/a |
Annual financial results
In 2018, Costco Wholesale annual turnover escalated a great 9.73% to $141,576.00 M USD from $129,025.00 marked in 2017. Instead, its income margin (compared to revenues) stayed steady to 2.21%, that is $3,134.00 million. Costco Wholesale fiscal year ends in August, and to evaluate its evolution since then, we estimate annual sales and income figures by adding results from the last 4 quarters. This is called TTM (or Twelve Trailing Months). So, Costco Wholesale TTM sales up to February 2019 were $147,237.00 and earnings $3,449.00 million USD. When comparing this TTM figures with the last reported annuality, we can review Costco Wholesale business evolution since August 2018: Annual revenues up to February, compared to lastest yearly report, inched a nice 4.00%. Instead, profit margin (net income/revenues) remained constant at 2.21%.| Year | Sales | YoY | Income/(margin) | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | $105,160 M | - | $2,040 M1.9% | - |
| 2014 | $112,640 M | 7.11% | $2,060 M1.8% | 0.98% |
| 2015 | $116,199 M | 3.16% | $2,377 M2.0% | 15.39% |
| 2016 | $118,719 M | 2.17% | $2,350 M2.0% | -1.14% |
| 2017 | $129,025 M | 8.68% | $2,679 M2.1% | 14.00% |
| 2018 | $141,576 M | 9.73% | $3,134 M2.2% | 16.98% |
| TTM | $147,237 M | 4.00% | $3,449 M2.3% | 10.05% |
Quarterly financial results
Costco Wholesale reported $35,396.00 M in revenues for 2019-Q1, a 0.93% up compared to previous quarter. Reported quarter earnings marked $889.00 M with a profit margin of 2.51%. Profit margin stayed constant a 0.32% compared to previous quarter when profit margin was 2.19%. When comparing sales to same quarter last year, Costco Wholesale sales marked a very good increase and rose a 7.28%.| Quarter | Sales1 | QoQ2 | Income1/(margin) | QoQ2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-Q2 | $28,860 M | - | $700 M2.4% | - |
| 2017-Q3 | $42,300 M | 46.57% | $919 M2.2% | 31.29% |
| 2017-Q4 | $31,809 M | -24.80% | $640 M2.0% | -30.36% |
| 2018-Q1 | $32,995 M | 3.73% | $701 M2.1% | 9.53% |
| 2018-Q2 | $32,361 M | -1.92% | $750 M2.3% | 6.99% |
| 2018-Q3 | $44,411 M | 37.24% | $1,043 M2.3% | 39.07% |
| 2018-Q4 | $35,069 M | -21.04% | $767 M2.2% | -26.46% |
| 2019-Q1 | $35,396 M | 0.93% | $889 M2.5% | 15.91% |
Costco Wholesale ownership
When you are planning to invest in a stock, it's always worth to have a look its ownership structure.Costco Wholesale shares owned by insiders (that is, founders, CEO, CTO, main executives or other management staff) currently counts a 0.52% of all shares.
In case of Costco Wholesale stock, 73.52% of its shares are held by institutions (mutual funds, pension funds, big banks and other large financial institutions). Bearish positions for COST stock account 0.00%, no big difference from last month.
For a better context understanding, the next table shows ownership data compared to other related companies:
| COST | BIG | DG | DLTR | FIVE | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Market cap | $125.9 B | $894.9 M | $40.3 B | $26.3 B | $7.2 B |
| Total shares | 439.8 M | 39.0 M | 257.1 M | 236.6 M | 55.7 M |
| Float shares | 432.9 M | 38.6 M | 243.1 M | 233.0 M | 54.4 M |
| - Institutional holdings (%) | 73.5% | 110.1% | 104.6% | 96.6% | 96.9% |
| - Insider holdings (%) | 0.5% | 1.7% | 0.1% | 2.8% | 2.3% |
| Shares in short selling | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
Costco summary
| Friday, September 20th, 2019 | |
|---|---|
| Open | $288.75 |
| Close | $286.36 |
| Day range | $286.14 - $289.41 |
| Previous close | $287.83 |
| Session gain | -0.51% |
| Average true range | $5.23 |
| 50d mov avg | $282.16 |
| 100d mov avg | $267.94 |
| 200d mov avg | $244.64 |
| Daily pattern | lb06a |
| Weekly pattern | lt06a |
Costco Wholesale performance
To measure stock performance is always good to compare with competitors or related stocks. In the following table, we compare Costco Wholesale performance to Big Lots, Dollar General, Dollar Tree, Five Below, PriceSmart, Target and Walmart:| Stock | 3m | 6m | 12m |
|---|---|---|---|
| COSTCostco Wholesale | 7.84% | 21.13% | 23.20% |
| BIGBig Lots | -19.85% | -33.04% | -41.92% |
| DGDollar General | 13.25% | 34.14% | 46.36% |
| DLTRDollar Tree | -1.00% | 9.50% | 30.56% |
| FIVEFive Below | -2.14% | 9.84% | 2.58% |
| PSMTPriceSmart | 18.32% | 3.60% | -27.40% |
| TGTTarget | 24.09% | 40.04% | 27.78% |
| WMTWalmart | 5.90% | 20.38% | 24.70% |
Costco Wholesale competitors
We picked a few stocks to conform a list of Costco Wholesale competitors to watch if you are interested in investing in COST:- Big Lots (BIG)
- Dollar General (DG)
- Dollar Tree (DLTR)
- Five Below (FIVE)
- PriceSmart (PSMT)
- Target (TGT)
- Walmart (WMT)
Latest Costco stock news
- InvestorPlaceCostco Wholesale Is the Real Walmart KillerSeptember 11, 2018
- InvestorPlaceThe Biggest Reason Costco Stock Is a BuyAugust 21, 2018
- CNN MoneyHow Costco thrives in the Amazon eraAugust 21, 2018
- InvestorPlaceShould Charlie Munger Buy More Costco Stock?August 9, 2018
- Seeking AlphaThe No. 1 Reason To Buy Costco StockJuly 25, 2018