Costco Wholesale Corp. (NASDAQ: COST | COST Price Prediction) is scheduled to release its fiscal second-quarter financial results after the markets close on Thursday. Analysts are calling for $2.04 in earnings per share (EPS) and $37.52 billion in revenue. The same period of last year reportedly had $1.89 in EPS and $34.74 billion in revenue.
For the retail month of April, Costco reported net sales of $11.39 billion, a decrease of 1.8% from $11.60 billion last year. During this period, comparable sales decreased across the board. Comp sales were down 3.3% year over year in the United States, 11.7% in Canada and 4.6% in other international markets. Note that e-commerce sales increased 85.7% in this time.
The wholesaler reported net sales of $15.49 billion for the retail month of March (the five weeks ended April 5, 2020), an increase of 11.7% from $13.87 billion last year. Comparable sales increased 9.6% as a whole. This consisted of U.S. comps increasing 10.7%, Canada comps up 1.2% and other international comps up 12.2%. E-commerce sales increased 48.3% in this time.
While a significant amount of consumer demand already may be priced into Costco stock, it will be interesting to see how the numbers shake out in the report.
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Excluding Thursday’s move, Costco Wholesale stock had outperformed the S&P 500 and Dow Jones industrial average with a gain of 4% year to date. In the past 52 weeks, the share price was up closer to 24%.
A few analysts weighed in on Costco ahead of the report:
- Oppenheimer has a Buy rating with a $335 price target.
- Deutsche Bank has a Hold rating and a $290 price target.
- Morgan Stanley rates it as Overweight with a $320 price target.
- Citigroup has a Neutral rating with a $310 price target.
- Nomura has a Hold rating and a $310 price target.
Costco Wholesale stock traded up about 1% at $309.07 on Thursday, in a 52-week range of $233.05 to $325.26. The consensus price target is $323.96.
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