Costco

Costco’s December sales numbers are the first indicator from a company of how holiday sales held up, and the early read is positive. DA Davidson analyst Michael Baker says in a research note that the overall comparative sales acceleration and the ramp up in online sales are both a good sign for general holiday spending. E-commerce sales in particular tend to correlate with discretionary items for Costco, a sign that shoppers were coming out in force to buy gifts in December. He also notes non-food goods, excluding foreign exchange, were up in the high-single digits, their best performance since August.

Costco Wholesale Corporation (COST) stock Analyst Ratings Date Upside/Downside Analyst Firm Price Target Change Rating Change Previous / Current Rating 12/29/2023 12.46% Tigress Financial $635 → $745 Maintains Buy 12/21/2023 11.86% Truist Securities $693 → $741 Maintains Buy 12/20/2023 -6.41% Northcoast Research → $620 Downgrades Buy → Neutral 12/15/2023 5.67% BMO Capital $612 → $700 Maintains Outperform 12/15/2023 -9.42% DA Davidson $570 → $600 Maintains Neutral 12/15/2023 1.9% Stifel $615 → $675 Maintains Buy 12/15/2023 -4.9% Citigroup $585 → $630 Maintains Neutral 12/15/2023 9.45% UBS $640 → $725 Maintains Buy 12/15/2023 1.9% Oppenheimer → $675 Reiterates Outperform → Outperform 12/15/2023 1.14% Raymond James $580 → $670 Maintains Outperform 12/15/2023 4.61% Truist Securities $619 → $693 Maintains Buy 12/15/2023 5.67% Telsey Advisory Group $625 → $700 Maintains Outperform 12/13/2023 1.9% Oppenheimer $630 → $675 Maintains Outperform 12/12/2023 -1.88% Evercore ISI Group $640 → $650 Maintains Outperform 11/30/2023 -7.16% Stifel $595 →

Costco Wholesale Corporation (COST) stock Analyst Ratings Date Upside/Downside Analyst Firm Price Target Change Rating Change Previous / Current Rating 12/20/2023 -7.85% Northcoast Research → $620 Downgrades Buy → Neutral 12/15/2023 4.05% BMO Capital $612 → $700 Maintains Outperform 12/15/2023 -10.82% DA Davidson $570 → $600 Maintains Neutral 12/15/2023 0.33% Stifel $615 → $675 Maintains Buy 12/15/2023 -6.36% Citigroup $585 → $630 Maintains Neutral 12/15/2023 7.76% UBS $640 → $725 Maintains Buy 12/15/2023 0.33% Oppenheimer → $675 Reiterates Outperform → Outperform 12/15/2023 -0.41% Raymond James $580 → $670 Maintains Outperform 12/15/2023 3.01% Truist Securities $619 → $693 Maintains Buy 12/15/2023 4.05% Telsey Advisory Group $625 → $700 Maintains Outperform 12/13/2023 0.33% Oppenheimer $630 → $675 Maintains Outperform 12/12/2023 -3.39% Evercore ISI Group $640 → $650 Maintains Outperform 11/30/2023 -8.59% Stifel $595 → $615 Maintains Buy 11/30/2023 -7.99% Truist Securities → $619 Reiterates Buy → Buy 11/30/2023 -7.1% Telsey Advisory Group

Discretionary spending is inching back just in time for the holidays. That’s one readout from analysts after spending data and quarterly results from Costco Wholesale this week showed shoppers still have an appetite to splurge on items beyond everyday groceries and essentials. The data comes after retailers, analysts and economists had cautioned in recent weeks that waning pandemic savings, higher interest rates and even the resumption of federal student loan payments could dampen demand for discretionary goods. Sales at electronics and appliance stores surged 12% year on year in November, according to the Commerce Department. That’s up from 1.5% in October after seven consecutive months of lower year-on-year sales. Other discretionary categories showed an acceleration from the previous months. Furniture and home furnishings stores posted a 7.3% decline in November, compared with a 12% slide the previous month. Sporting goods, hobby, book and music store sales, meanwhile, logged a 0.2%

Shares of Costco Wholesale are on pace for their fifth all-time high close in just more than a week after the company’s discretionary sales ticked up in the recently completed first quarter. The stock was up 4.4% to $658.46 in midday trading, reaching an all-time intraday high and notching its largest percent increase since January. Shares are up 44% this year. Costco shares are on pace to reach a fifth record close since Dec. 7. The big-box retailer on Thursday said it logged a higher profit in the period ended Nov. 26, as sales rose in line with analysts’ expectations. Same-store sales, which strip out store openings and closures, rose 3.8%, consistent with the prior quarter. Costco’s e-commerce sales rose in the quarter, bucking a trend of sliding sales. The company saw improvements in its bigger-ticket non-food items, also a reversal from previous results where Costco saw weakness in discretionary

Costco Wholesale is one of the most mentioned companies in the U.S. across all news items in the last 12 hours, according to Factiva data. Several analysts have raised their price target on Costco shares a day after the company reported first-quarter sales rose 6.1% from the year-ago period. The company also said it would pay a special dividend of $15 per share. Among the analysts raising their price targets were DA Davidson, which increased its target to $600 a share from $570, and BMO Capital, which pushed its target up to $700 a share from $612, as reported by Benzinga. Dow Jones & Co. owns Factiva.

Costco Wholesale (COST) reported “solid” earnings per share growth in fiscal Q1 despite below-average comparable sales, but its special dividend could potentially impact fiscal year 2024 EPS, Morgan Stanley said in a note to clients Friday. Costco’s earnings before interest and taxes still grew 7.6%, while its EPS jumped over 12% in the quarter, roughly in line with pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels. US comparable sales of 2.6% and total comparable sales of 3.9%, excluding gasoline, were below the average of 5% from 2016 to 2019, according to the note. Morgan Stanley analysts said that fiscal 2024 comparable sales and EBIT estimates “look safe” and they don’t expect analysts’ forecasts of 4.3% in comparable sales growth and $8.9 billion in EBIT to “significantly change.” The retailer’s special dividend of $15 per share, which is the highest special dividend set in more than a decade, is expected to reduce the company’s cash balance

Costco Wholesale (COST) reported fiscal Q1 earnings Thursday of $3.58 per diluted share, up from $3.07 a year earlier. Analysts surveyed by Capital IQ expected $3.42. Revenue for the quarter ended Nov. 26 was $57.80 billion, up from $54.44 billion a year earlier. Analysts surveyed by Capital IQ expected $57.79 billion. The company said its board set a special dividend of $15 per share, payable Jan. 12 to shareholders of record on Dec. 28.

The following is a summary of the Costco Wholesale Corporation (COST) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript: Financial Performance: Costco’s reported net income for Q1 2024 increased to $1.589 billion or $3.58 per share. The company saw a 6.1% increase in net sales to $56.72 billion from last year’s $53.44 billion. There was a tax benefit of $44 million or $0.10 a share included in this year’s results related to stock-based compensation. Membership fee income for the quarter increased by 8.2% to $1.082 billion. Renewal rates for the memberships have shown a positive trend with U.S. and Canada renewal rate standing at 92.8% and the worldwide rate at 90.5%. For this quarter, the net income was up by 16.5% year-over-year. Business Progress: For FY ’24, plans are underway to open 33 new locations, indicating a significant increase from the 23 opened in FY ’23. E-commerce sales presented an area of growth,

Costco Wholesale (NASDAQ:COST) Analyst Ratings Date Upside/Downside Analyst Firm Price Target Change Rating Change Previous / Current Rating 12/15/2023 8.93% Telsey Advisory Group $625 → $700 Maintains Outperform 12/13/2023 5.04% Oppenheimer $630 → $675 Maintains Outperform 12/12/2023 1.15% Evercore ISI Group $640 → $650 Maintains Outperform 11/30/2023 -4.3% Stifel $595 → $615 Maintains Buy 11/30/2023 -3.68% Truist Securities → $619 Reiterates Buy → Buy 11/30/2023 -2.74% Telsey Advisory Group $600 → $625 Maintains Outperform 11/27/2023 -6.64% Telsey Advisory Group → $600 Reiterates Outperform → Outperform 11/13/2023 -7.41% Stifel $575 → $595 Maintains Buy 11/02/2023 -5.86% JP Morgan $620 → $605 Maintains Overweight 11/02/2023 -6.64% Telsey Advisory Group → $600 Reiterates Outperform → Outperform 10/30/2023 -6.64% Telsey Advisory Group → $600 Reiterates Outperform → Outperform 10/19/2023 -6.64% Telsey Advisory Group → $600 Reiterates Outperform → Outperform 10/05/2023 -3.68% Truist Securities → $619 Reiterates Buy → Buy 10/05/2023 -3.52% JP Morgan $571

CFRA, an independent research provider, has provided MT Newswires with the following research alert. Analysts at CFRA have summarized their opinion as follows: We lift our 12-month target to $659 from $577, 42x our FY 24 (Aug.) EPS of $15.68 (up from $15.60; FY 25 up to $17.07 from $16.97) vs. 36x five-year average forward P/E. F1Q EPS of $3.58 (+17%) beat by $0.15 on comp sales growth (ex-fuel and FX) of 3.9% (+4.7% traffic; -1.6% average transaction amount). Membership growth continued as COST ended F1Q with 72.0M paid households (+7.6% Y/Y) and 33.2M Executive members (+0.9M Q/Q). The renewal rate was 92.8% in the U.S. and Canada, up 10 bps Q/Q. Inflation averaged 1%-2% in the quarter but trended toward 0%-1% as the quarter ended. In our view, these are the ingredients needed to support a membership fee hike, which is past due based on historic trends (usually every

Costco Wholesale Corp. (COST) late Wednesday said that its October net sales rose 4.5% to $18.53 billion, from $17.73 billion in October 2022. Costco same-store sales rose 3%, and e-commerce sales, which during the height of the pandemic grew by double-digit numbers for several months, rose 3.7%. Costco shares were flat in the after-hours session after a 0.8% advance in the regular trading day.