{"id":428047,"date":"2026-03-06T04:51:49","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T21:51:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/market-news\/2026\/03\/costco-beats-on-earnings-but-little-reaction-from-shares\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T04:51:49","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T21:51:49","slug":"costco-beats-on-earnings-but-little-reaction-from-shares","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/market-news\/costco-beats-on-earnings-but-little-reaction-from-shares-428047\/","title":{"rendered":"Costco beats on earnings but little reaction from shares"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Costco came in ahead on the top and bottom line in the after-hours report today. EPS landed at $4.58 vs. the $4.55 estimate, while total revenue hit $69.60B against the $69.27B consensus. Net income rose to $2.035B from $1.788B a year ago \u2014 a 13.8% jump.<\/p>\n

The comp sales numbers are where it gets interesting for the macro view. Total company comps ex-gas and FX came in at +6.7%, well above the +5.9% estimate. Including gas and FX, comps printed +7.4% vs. the +6.72% consensus. The U.S. adjusted number was +6.4%, Canada +7.6%, and Other International +7.1%.<\/p>\n

Digitally-enabled comparable sales surged 22.6% in Q2 (21.7% adjusted), showing the consumer is still spending and increasingly doing it online through Costco’s platform.<\/p>\n

Costco skews to the top side of the K-shape and that consumer is still doing well. The strength here doesn’t necessarily speak to the lower end of the income spectrum \u2014 but it does tell you discretionary spending hasn’t rolled over. Net sales growth of 9.1% YoY in this rate environment is notable. Membership fees rose to $1.355B from $1.193B, a 13.6% increase that reflects the recent fee hike flowing through and continued membership growth \u2014 a sign of sticky demand and consumer confidence in the value proposition.<\/p>\n

The February sales month (four weeks ended March 1) showed acceleration too, with net sales up 9.5% YoY and total comps at +7.9% (+7.0% adjusted). The company flagged that Lunar\/Chinese New Year timing gave a roughly 4% lift to Other International and ~0.5% to total company for the period, so strip that out and the underlying trend is still solid.<\/p>\n

On the balance sheet, cash and equivalents jumped to $17.38B from $14.16B at fiscal year-end, with operating cash flow of $7.68B in the first half \u2014 up significantly from $6.01B in the year-ago period. Costco is throwing off cash. CapEx ran at $2.82B for the half, with the warehouse count now at 924 globally.<\/p>\n

One thing worth watching: merchandise costs as a percentage of net sales ticked up slightly to 88.97% from 89.15% a year ago \u2014 actually a slight improvement. SG&A as a percentage of sales was 9.19% vs 9.06%, a modest increase likely reflecting wage and benefits pressure, though the operating leverage on the top line more than offset it. Operating income grew 12.5% YoY.<\/p>\n

The company didn’t comment on tariffs and potential refunds in its report.<\/p>\n

Shares fell 2.6% in regular trading today and fractionally lower in after-hours trade. The conference call starts shortly.<\/p>\n

This article was written by Adam Button at investinglive.com.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Costco came in ahead on the top and bottom line in the after-hours report today. EPS landed at $4.58 vs. the $4.55 estimate, while total revenue hit $69.60B against the $69.27B consensus.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":216,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-428047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-market-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/216"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428047\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}