Costco stock: buy or sell?
Updated on:
February 14th, 2020
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. Having a trading plan helps to make decisions easier, quicker and with less hesitations. There are thousands of trading strategies for you to choose, but at Stocks2.com we prefer those that are simple but successful.These 2 buy setups match with Costco Wholesale stock right now:
| Buy setup | Elegible |
|---|---|
| New all-time high | Yes |
| New 52 week high | Yes |
| 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.
Unfortunately, we couldn't find any rating for COST stock for the last 30 days.Costco stock analysis
Daily outlook
After several days of continuous hikes in past weeks, Costco Wholesale remained steady 0.03% to $318.31.
After topping to all time highs on February/14, Costco Wholesale remained steady 0.03% to $318.31. Since price and SMA100d lines crossed up on January/8, COST climbed $27.57 (9.48%).
Weekly outlook
Costco Wholesale shares peaked new all time highs again this week, setting highs to $319.81. Shares closed at $318.31 and stepped up 1.49% during the week.
Price pattern shows an uptrend with two rising tops and bottoms, and now finally trading above the $313.62 resistance. Since SMA20d and SMA40w crossed up early May, COST price climbed $75.93 per share (31.33%). Since late February 2019 when COST stock price broke up the SMA40w line, it gained $104.00 (48.53%).
Costco stock price history
Costco stock went public on July 9th, 1986 with a price of $7.791. Since then, COST stock surged a 3,986.10%, with a yearly average of 120.80%. If you had invested $1,000 in Costco stock in 1986, it would worth $39,861.00 today.
1: Adjusted price after possible price splits or reverse-splits.
Costco stock historical price chart
COST stock reached all-time highs on Feb/14 with a price of $319.81.
Costco stock price target
Nobody can reliably foresee how stock prices may evolve in the future. 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. We do not recommend to follow these stock price predictions without a critical thinking from your side, as their accuracy is usually low. For the last month we have not found any price forecast for Costco Wholesale stock by any trusted analyst.Financials and fundamental analysis
Earnings date and Earnings per Share
Costco Wholesale reported cool results for 2019-Q1 on March. Costco Wholesale rocketed Earnings per Share (EPS) by 20.40%, beating experts estimates 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
Compared to 2017, last anual turnover report draw a wonderful gain of 9.73% to $141,576.00 M dollars. However, its profit margin (compared to revenues) stayed constant to 2.21%, that is $3,134.00 million. Costco Wholesale presents anual results in August, and to compare 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 income $3,449.00 M USD. If we compare this TTM figures with the last reported annuality, we can esteem Costco Wholesale business evolution since August 2018: Annual sales up to February, compared to lastest yearly report, gained a nice 4.00%. Improving that, profit margin (net income/revenues) stayed steady 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 million in revenues for 2019-Q1, a 0.93% improvement compared to previous quarter. Reported quarter income 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 revenues to same quarter last year, Costco Wholesale sales marked a great increase and escalated 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 buy shares of a stock, it's worth to review its ownership structure.Management staff in all public traded companies that hold equity is required to report every transaction to the SEC. For Costco Wholesale, 0.22% of all outstanding shares are owned by its staff.
In case of Costco Wholesale stock, 72.48% 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 following table shows ownership data compared to other related companies:
| COST | |
|---|---|
| Market cap | $140.6 B |
| Total shares | 441.8 M |
| Float shares | 439.2 M |
| - Institutional holdings (%) | 72.5% |
| - Insider holdings (%) | 0.2% |
| Shares in short selling | 0.0% |
Costco summary
| Friday, February 14th, 2020 | |
|---|---|
| Open | $318.87 |
| Close | $318.31 |
| Day range | $316.95 - $319.81 |
| Previous close | $318.20 |
| Session gain | 0.03% |
| Average true range | $4.17 |
| 50d mov avg | $300.89 |
| 100d mov avg | $298.60 |
| 200d mov avg | $282.93 |
| Daily pattern | |
| Weekly pattern | lb02c |
Costco Wholesale performance
To better understand Costco Wholesale performance you must becnhmark its gains with other related stocks in same sector or industry. In the following table, we compare Costco Wholesale performance to :| Stock | 3m | 6m | 12m |
|---|---|---|---|
| COSTCostco Wholesale | 5.05% | 16.88% | 48.40% |
Costco Wholesale competitors
Unfortunately, we could not find any public company that could be defined as Costco Wholesale competitor. This doesn't mean Costco Wholesale does not have any competitor in the market, it's just we could not detected it.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