Key Stats for Costco Stock
- Current Price: $947.74
- Target Price (Mid): ~$1,393
- Street Target: ~$1,077
- Potential Total Return: ~47%
- Annualized IRR: ~10% / year
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What Happened?
Costco Wholesale Corporation (COST) reports fiscal fourth-quarter results on September 24, after the close, and the setup is unusual for a company that rarely surprises. The Street is looking for around $6.50 in earnings per share, up roughly 11% from a year ago. Costco has met or beaten Wall Street’s bottom-line estimate almost every quarter for years, to the point where a clean beat barely moves the stock anymore. So the question is not whether Costco can grow. It is whether growth this reliable can still move a stock that already trades near 48 times earnings and sits about 14% below its 52-week high of $1,096.50.
That gap between a business that keeps working and a stock that keeps stalling is why this date matters. Costco’s July sales report showed net sales up 10.7% to $23.12 billion, with total company comparable sales up 8.9%. Strip out a gas-price tailwind and foreign exchange, though, and those comps were 6.6%, and shares still slipped about 0.3% the next session. When a double-digit sales month barely registers, the details underneath the headline become the story.
The Bar Is a Number Only Clean Execution Clears
TIKR’s consensus frames fiscal 2026 EPS near $20.58, up about 13% from $18.21 in fiscal 2025. That pace matches Costco’s ten-year EPS growth rate almost exactly, which is why the market treats a double-digit beat as the baseline rather than the upside.
The metrics that move the stock on September 24 sit one level down. Watch comparable sales excluding gas and foreign exchange, which ran 6.6% in July, and shows whether real member demand holds as the year laps tougher comparisons. Watch worldwide traffic, up 3.6% in July, because rising visit frequency is the signal that a promotion cannot easily buy. And watch the U.S. and Canada renewal rate, which held at 92.2% last quarter. That fee income carries almost no cost and flows straight to profit, so even a ten-basis-point wobble reshapes the earnings-quality argument that justifies the premium.
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The Promise Now Coming Due
On the fiscal Q3 call in May, CEO Ron Vachris said the company had begun submitting tariff refund claims and committed to returning that value to members. “Our goal is to be the first to lower prices and the last to raise them,” he told analysts. That line doubles as guidance: Costco is signaling it will spend recovered tariff dollars on member prices rather than let them inflate reported margins.
That reframes how to read gross margin on September 24. Costco keeps its merchandise margins deliberately thin, using high-margin membership fees to fund aggressive shelf pricing against rivals like Walmart. So a flat or slightly softer margin is not automatically a weakness if it reflects savings passed through by design. Investors can check the specifics against Costco’s own investor relations materials when the release drops. The risk runs the other way: Vachris was explicit that refunds are uncertain in size and timing, so if they prove smaller or slower than hoped, the pricing lever management is counting on gets shorter.
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TIKR Advanced Model Analysis
- Current Price: $947.74
- Target Price (Mid): ~$1,393
- Potential Total Return: ~47%
- Annualized IRR: ~10% / year
See analysts’ growth forecasts and price targets for Costco stock (It’s free!) >>>
The case rests on two revenue drivers: continued warehouse unit growth as the store pipeline expands, and steady comparable-sales gains led by traffic and digitally-enabled sales, which grew 17.7% in July. The margin driver is membership fee income, which compounds faster than merchandise costs and lifts net margin toward the model’s 3.3% mid-case assumption. The primary risk is the multiple itself: at nearly 48 times earnings, Costco needs years of clean double-digit growth just to hold its ground.
The upside is a decade-long 13% EPS compounder extending its run as the store base grows. The downside is that any renewal-rate softening or tariff-refund shortfall tests whether the premium survives. The model’s own math leans on this, showing a modest P/E contraction over the forecast, meaning nearly all the return has to come from earnings rather than from investors paying an even richer multiple.
Conclusion
The single number that decides September 24 is adjusted comparable sales excluding gas and foreign exchange. Above roughly 6.5%, and the traffic-driven demand story holds, giving the premium multiple something real to stand on. Meaningfully below, and the deceleration bears have warned about, becomes harder to wave away at this valuation. Costco reports after the close on Thursday, September 24. Shares have taught investors that a clean beat alone will not move them, so the burden this time falls on the quality of the comp and on what management signals about turning tariff refunds into member prices.
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Should You Invest in Costco?
The only way to really know is to look at the numbers yourself. TIKR gives you free access to the same institutional-quality financial data that professional analysts use to answer exactly that question.
Pull up Costco, and you’ll see years of historical financials, what Wall Street analysts expect for revenue and earnings in the quarters ahead, how valuation multiples have moved over time, and whether price targets are trending up or down.
You can build a free watchlist to track Costco alongside every other stock on your radar. No credit card required. Just the data you need to decide for yourself.
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Disclaimer:
Please note that the articles on TIKR are not intended to serve as investment or financial advice from TIKR or our content team, nor are they recommendations to buy or sell any stocks. We create our content based on TIKR Terminal’s investment data and analysts’ estimates. Our analysis might not include recent company news or important updates. TIKR has no position in any stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading, and happy investing!
