COST

Costco Wholesale Corp /new

NASDAQ· Consumer Defensive· Discount Stores· CUSIP 22160K105

$1,018.21+1.99%Price as of Oct 23, 00:41 UTC · updated once a day, after the close

At a glance

Costco Wholesale Corp /new (COST) is listed on NASDAQ and classified in Discount Stores, part of the Consumer Defensive sector. It is headquartered in Issaquah, United States and has 355,000 employees. The company is worth $451.2B and trades at 49.0x its earnings of the last twelve months; the median for its sector is 18.2x. Revenue was $303.15B in fiscal 2026, up 10.1% from the year before. Net income was $9.23B. The share price is 7.1% below its 52-week high of $1,096.50. It pays a dividend yielding 0.58%, and has raised its annual dividend for 20 years in a row in our records. 6 of the 38 superinvestors we track held it at the end of Q2 2026. The largest position belongs to Cliff Asness (AQR Capital Management), at $1.17B. In that quarter, 3 of them opened or added to the position and 2 reduced it. Over the last 30 days, company insiders sold $3.8M of its stock on the open market and bought none.

Written from the data on this page: SEC filings (13F, Form 4, annual reports) and market prices.

Analysis

Articles on this site that cover Costco Wholesale Corp /new.

Costco (COST): $303 billion of revenue on a 3.9% operating margin, 84 million paying members and five special dividendsPublished Oct 23, 2026

Key metrics

Market cap: $451.2B
P/E: 49.0x
Forward P/E: 40.7x
P/B: 12.6x
Dividend yield: 0.58%
Payout: 28.32%
EPS: $20.76
ROE: 28.40%
Profit margin: 3.04%
Revenue growth: +11.10%
Beta: 0.87
52-week high: $1,096.50
52-week low: $844.06

History

Year by year, from the annual reports; dividends from the payments themselves.

Equity, revenue and profitEquityRevenueNet income

Bars are year-end balances; lines are what happened during the year.

Revenue19 years

Net debtDebt minus cash — below zero means more cash than debt

Dividend per share23 years

Dividend growthComplete years only.

Investors holding this

Major managers that reported this stock in their latest 13F.

Price over time

▲ +83.4% over 5Y.

If you had invested$ago,

today you would have $2,119.95▲ +112.0%

Dividends reinvested, splits accounted for. Past prices say what happened, not what will.

Indicators, year by year

The last 19 closed years, each at that year’s closing price and reported numbers.

Indicator	Median	2026	2025	2024	2023	2022	2021	2020	2019	2018	2017	2016	2015	2014	2013	2012	2011	2010	2009	2008
Year-end price		$989.11	$862.34	$916.27	$660.08	$456.50	$567.70	$376.78	$293.92	$203.71	$186.12	$160.11	$161.50	$141.75	$119.02	$98.73	$83.32	$72.21	$59.17	$52.50
P/E	30.5x	47.6x	47.4x	55.3x	46.6x	34.7x	50.4x	41.8x	35.6x	28.7x	30.6x	30.0x	30.1x	30.5x	25.7x	25.4x	25.2x	24.7x	24.0x	18.2x
P/S	0.6x	1.4x	1.4x	1.6x	1.2x	0.9x	1.3x	1.0x	0.8x	0.6x	0.6x	0.6x	0.6x	0.6x	0.5x	0.4x	0.4x	0.4x	0.4x	0.3x
P/B	7.0x	12.2x	13.1x	17.2x	11.7x	9.8x	14.3x	9.1x	8.5x	7.0x	7.5x	5.8x	6.7x	5.0x	4.8x	3.5x	3.0x	2.9x	2.6x	2.5x
EPS		$20.76	$18.21	$16.56	$14.16	$13.14	$11.27	$9.02	$8.26	$7.09	$6.08	$5.33	$5.37	$4.65	$4.63	$3.89	$3.30	$2.92	$2.47	$2.89
Dividend yield	1.09%	0.43%	0.59%	0.49%	2.87%	0.76%	0.54%	3.38%	0.86%	1.08%	4.81%	1.09%	4.06%	0.97%	1.01%	8.17%	1.11%	1.10%	1.18%	1.19%
Payout	28.34%	20.42%	27.79%	27.17%	133.90%	26.56%	27.24%	141.35%	30.51%	31.17%	147.20%	32.83%	122.07%	29.57%	26.03%	207.33%	28.03%	27.23%	28.34%	21.64%
Profit margin	2.08%	3.04%	2.94%	2.90%	2.60%	2.57%	2.56%	2.40%	2.40%	2.21%	2.08%	1.98%	2.05%	1.83%	1.94%	1.72%	1.64%	1.67%	1.52%	1.77%
ROE	22.39%	25.77%	27.77%	31.19%	25.11%	28.31%	28.51%	21.89%	24.00%	24.49%	24.86%	19.46%	22.39%	16.73%	18.82%	13.83%	12.18%	12.03%	10.83%	13.83%

Median of the years shown; P/E years above 200x are left out.

Fair price, seven ways

Seven formulas applied to the reported numbers, each with its assumption next to the result. None of them predicts a price.

Graham

Earnings

$194.24

Square root of 22.5 × earnings × book value. Blind to intangibles, so it undervalues software and brands.

Lynch (PEGY)

Earnings

$281.77

Earnings growing 13.0% a year plus a 0.6% dividend yield. Growth capped at 25%.

Sector multiples

Earnings

$377.43

Median P/E of 18.2 among peers in the sector.

Its own history

Earnings

$632.85

Median P/E of 30.5 across this company’s own years on record.

Discounted cash flow

Cash flow

$656.40

Cash flow growing 13.0% a year for 10 years, discounted at 10%, then 2.5% forever.

EV/EBITDA

Operating

$402.04

Sector median of 11.4x operating profit, less net debt. Banks have no EBITDA.

Gordon (dividends)

Dividends

—

This formula has no meaning here — usually a loss, negative cash flow, or a missing input.

How the average is calculated

The average of the method families that answered, not of the seven numbers: four of the seven start from the same earnings per share.

Earnings $371.57 (avg. of 4)+Cash flow $656.40+Operating $402.04÷ 3 =$476.67

Average

$476.67

6 methods answered, across 3 families.

With a 25% margin of safety

$357.50

Room for errors in the reported numbers.

Trading at

$1,018.21

-53.2% from the average.

Models, not forecasts, and not investment advice. How each formula works →

Others in the same sector

Companies of similar size in Consumer Defensive, for comparison. The columns are the same ones above, in the same order.

Stock	Price	P/E	P/B	Dividend yield	ROE	Market cap
KOCoca Cola Co	$95.34	28.6x	11.3x	2.22%	42.05%	$410.2B
PGPROCTER & GAMBLE Co	$165.59	23.7x	7.2x	2.63%	30.29%	$384.61B
PMPhilip Morris International Inc.	$201.74	28.8x	—	3.17%	—	$314.43B
WMTWalmart Inc.	$121.12	43.9x	9.8x	0.82%	22.31%	$963.88B
PEPPepsico Inc	$138.83	17.0x	8.5x	4.26%	52.19%	$189.19B
BUDAnheuser-Busch InBev SA	$85.49	17.7x	10.8x	1.58%	11.39%	$168.34B

About the company

Employees: 355,000
Headquarters: Issaquah, United States
Website: costco.com