Costco Wholesale COST

Discount Stores, Consumer Defensive

$1,003.32

−1.46%

Market cap: $444.6B
PE: 48.3×; 10y median 38.7×
Forward PE: 44.0×; 10y median 34.8×
Price to sales: 1.5×
EV/EBIT: 36.8×
Revenue, 12 months: $303.2B; +10% on a year ago
Net margin: 3.0%
Free cash flow yield: 2.1%

A Superworth story

Nothing broke, and the multiple fell anyway

A good business, and investors paying less for each dollar it earns

7 charts, with numbers as of Oct 16, 2026

The business kept compounding
Revenue reached 303 billion dollars over the last four quarters, up 10.1 percent on the year before. Members drive it: the fees they pay are much of the profit, and new nationwide delivery on DoorDash and Uber Eats gives more people a reason to join.
So did earnings
Earnings per share grew faster than sales, from 14.67 dollars in late 2023 to 20.76 for fiscal 2026. Fifteen cents of that came from one-off tariff refunds that will not repeat.
Margins are at a ten-year high, which cuts both ways
Operating margin is 3.9 percent, higher than on almost every day of the last ten years, against a median of 3.4. Costco keeps about three cents of every sales dollar as profit. If margins drift back toward the median, earnings grow slower than sales even while sales keep rising.
The stock fell from its May high, then bounced
Market value peaked at 485 billion dollars in May 2026. It is about a tenth below that now and roughly flat over a year, after a rebound of 8.5 percent in the last month. Revenue kept climbing the whole time.
The multiple did that, not the business
PE, the multiple, is the price divided by a year of earnings. It peaked at about 63 in February 2025. By the May 2026 price peak, faster earnings growth had already pulled it down. The fall since is a de-rating, investors paying less for each dollar of earnings. At about 47, it sits below where it spent most of the last three years.
Over ten years, it is still not cheap
On a five-year view the PE sits right at its median. On ten years it is higher than about three days in four. The median peer in its industry trades at about 26 times, so Costco costs about 1.8 times as much for earnings expected to grow near ten percent. That is the fear: a premium that wide leaves little room for a slow year.
The price assumes growth near 10 percent keeps going
Analysts expect 22.82 dollars a share over the next twelve months, about ten percent growth, or about 43 times earnings at today's price. The chart's history before late September is rebuilt from today's estimates. If the year after grows as forecast, the multiple slips into the high thirties. The December report starts the test: growth near ten percent holds the case, slower growth does not.

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What has happened lately

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Charts

Financials

Income statement for COST, by quarter
Income statement	Q1 FY24	Q2 FY24	Q3 FY24	Q4 FY24	Q1 FY25	Q2 FY25	Q3 FY25	Q4 FY25	Q1 FY26	Q2 FY26	Q3 FY26	Q4 FY26
	$57.8B+6%	$58.4B+6%	$58.5B+9%	$79.7B+1%	$62.2B+8%	$63.7B+9%	$63.2B+8%	$86.2B+8%	$67.3B+8%	$69.6B+9%	$70.5B+12%	$95.7B+11%
Cost of revenue	$50.5B+6%	$51.1B+6%	$51.2B+9%	$69.6B+1%	$54.1B+7%	$55.7B+9%	$55B+8%	$75B+8%	$58.5B+8%	$60.7B+9%	$61.5B+12%	$83.5B+11%
Gross profit	$7.3B+10%	$7.3B+7%	$7.3B+13%	$10.1B+4%	$8B+10%	$8B+9%	$8.2B+12%	$11.1B+10%	$8.8B+9%	$8.9B+11%	$9B+10%	$12.2B+10%
SG&A	$5.4B+9%	$5.2B+6%	$5.1B+7%	$7.1B+2%	$5.8B+9%	$5.7B+8%	$5.7B+10%	$7.8B+10%	$6.3B+8%	$6.3B+11%	$6.2B+9%	$8.4B+8%
	$2B+13%	$2.1B+8%	$2.2B+31%	$3B+9%	$2.2B+11%	$2.3B+12%	$2.5B+15%	$3.3B+10%	$2.5B+12%	$2.6B+13%	$2.8B+11%	$3.8B+14%
Interest expense	$38M+12%	$41M+21%	$41M+14%	$49M−13%	$37M−3%	$36M−12%	$35M−15%	$46M−6%	$35M−5%	$33M−8%	$32M−9%	$45M−2%
Pre-tax income	$2.1B+19%	$2.2B+13%	$2.3B+29%	$3.1B+5%	$2.3B+10%	$2.4B+8%	$2.6B+13%	$3.5B+13%	$2.6B+12%	$2.7B+12%	$2.9B+14%	$4B+14%
	$517M+27%	$494M−4%	$603M+29%	$759M−6%	$508M−2%	$634M+28%	$677M+12%	$900M+19%	$582M+15%	$686M+8%	$746M+10%	$1B+12%
Net income	$1.6B+17%	$1.7B+19%	$1.7B+29%	$2.4B+9%	$1.8B+13%	$1.8B+3%	$1.9B+13%	$2.6B+11%	$2B+11%	$2B+14%	$2.2B+15%	$3B+15%
	$3.58+17%	$3.92+19%	$3.78+29%	$5.29+9%	$4.04+13%	$4.02+3%	$4.28+13%	$5.87+11%	$4.50+11%	$4.58+14%	$4.93+15%	$6.75+15%
	444.4M+0%	444.8M+0%	444.8M+0%	445M+0%	444.9M+0%	444.9M+0%	444.8M+0%	444.7M−0%	444.5M−0%	444.4M−0%	444.4M−0%	444.4M−0%

Gross profit: 72 periods, Q1 FY09 to Q4 FY26: not printed by the filing, worked out from its own lines.

Net income: 6 periods, Q4 FY21 to Q4 FY26: printed in the fourth-quarter results release.

EPS, diluted: Q4 FY09: quarter's net income to common over its shares, to the cent. 7 periods, Q4 FY10 to Q4 FY26: printed in the fourth-quarter results release.

Diluted shares: 6 periods, Q4 FY21 to Q4 FY26: printed in the fourth-quarter results release.

From each company's 10-Q and 10-K filings, the newest version of each figure. Quarters are as filed (a fourth quarter is the year less its first nine months), fiscal years as the 10-K prints them, restated where a later 10-K restated them, and balance sheet lines as of the period's end. A quarter whose 10-Q isn't filed yet is from the company's results release. Growth is on the same period a year earlier. A dash is a period with no figure for the line: the filing doesn't print it, or it hasn't been read yet.

Estimates

Next earnings report: Dec 10, 2026.

Quarter	Revenue	Range	EPS	Range	Analysts
Q1 FY27	$74.3B	$72.7B to $75.8B	$4.93	$4.74 to $5.14	17
Q2 FY27	$76.6B	$74.8B to $78.6B	$5.13	$4.89 to $5.27	17
Q3 FY27	$76.1B	$73.8B to $77.9B	$5.46	$5.25 to $5.62	7
Q4 FY27	$103.4B	$100.2B to $105.7B	$7.30	$7.01 to $7.52	11
Q1 FY28	$79.9B	$77.5B to $81.8B	$5.34	$5.13 to $5.50	7
Q2 FY28	$82.5B	$80B to $84.4B	$5.58	$5.36 to $5.74	10
Q3 FY28	$81.8B	$79.3B to $83.7B	$5.98	$5.74 to $6.16	8
Q4 FY28	$112.6B	$109.2B to $115.2B	$8.05	$7.73 to $8.29	16

Peers

Companies in Consumer Defensive nearest Costco Wholesale's size, closest first.

Company	Market cap	PE	Its 10y median PE	Fwd PE	P/S	Revenue growth	Net margin
COSTCostco Wholesale	$444.6B	48.3×	38.7×	44.0×	1.5×	+10%	3.0%
KOCoca-Cola	$398.9B	27.8×	27.8×	27.3×	8.0×	+7%	28.6%
PGProcter & Gamble	$374.3B	24.3×	25.2×	23.3×	4.3×	+4%	18.2%
PMPhilip Morris International	$310.9B	29.1×	18.5×	22.2×	7.2×	+8%	24.8%
WMTWalmart	$951.2B	43.3×	31.6×	39.9×	1.3×	+6%	3.0%
PEPPepsiCo	$185B	17.1×	25.9×	16.0×	1.9×	+6%	11.1%
MOAltria	$124.1B	15.7×	13.1×	12.9×	6.1×	+1%	39.0%
MNSTMonster Beverage	$90.5B	42.8×	37.9×	37.4×	9.8×	+20%	23.1%
MDLZMondelez International	$81.4B	23.5×	22.6×	19.8×	2.1×	+7%	8.9%
CLColgate-Palmolive	$75B	37.3×	27.2×	24.0×	3.6×	+5%	9.7%
TGTTarget	$69.4B	15.9×	15.8×	16.5×	0.6×	+2%	4.1%
Peer median	$154.5B	26.0×	25.5×	22.8×	3.9×	+6%	14.7%