COST
COSTCO WHOLESALE CORP /NEWEvidence as of 2026-08-27The desk's Snapshot
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Overview · COSTCO WHOLESALE CORP /NEW
Costco Wholesale Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the operation of membership warehouses in the United States, Puerto Rico, Canada, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Japan, Korea, Australia, Spain, France, Iceland, China, and Taiwan. It offers branded and private-label products in a range of merchandise categories. The company offers sundries, dry groceries, candies, coolers, freezers, liquor, and to…
Management team
- Peter Gruening · Senior VP of Membership, Marketing & Member Service CentersFind on LinkedIn
- Sheri Flies · Senior Vice President of Global Sustainability & ComplianceFind on LinkedIn
- Mr. Russell D. Miller · Senior EVP and COO of Warehouse Operations - U.S. & MexicoFind on LinkedIn
- Mr. Pierre Riel · Executive VP & COO of International DivisionFind on LinkedIn
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Links open LinkedIn searches, not verified profiles. Team data from our market-data vendor's company profile.
Moneyta sentiment
Where the published evidence leans after the desk debated it — not a rating or a recommendation.
−0.2 on a −2 to +2 scale.
What builds the score
Solid bars are analyst rubric scores; faded bars are computed directly from data. Claims dropped in debate count for nothing; weakened claims count at half weight.
Editor's note
Written after the debate settled — the rest of the page is the evidence behind it.
The evidence balance is Mixed ( -0.2 of a possible +2; was -0.2 before debate), confidence high. Revenue in fiscal Q1 2026 (ended 2025-12-10) was $ 67,307,000,000, $ 63,723,000,000 in fiscal Q2 2026 (ended 2026-03-04) and $ 70,527,000,000 in fiscal Q3 2026 (ended 2026-05-27). Operating income for those quarters was $ 2,463,000,000 (Q1), $ 2,316,000,000 (Q2) and $ 2,815,000,000 (Q3), implying operating margins of ~ 3.66% (Q1), ~ 3.63% (Q2) and ~ 3.99% (Q3).
Net income (loss) was $ 2,001,000,000 in fiscal Q1 2026, $ 1,788,000,000 in fiscal Q2 2026 and $ 2,192,000,000 in fiscal Q3 2026, with diluted EPS of $ 4.50 (Q1), $ 4.02 (Q2) and $ 4.93 (Q3). Shares outstanding are essentially flat, moving from 443,869,411 as of 2025-12-10 to 443,478,804 as of 2026-05-27. Cash and cash equivalents rose from $ 9,906,000,000 as of 2024-09-01 to $ 18,946,000,000 as of 2026-05-10 while long-term debt decreased modestly over the same span.
How this note was made
every stage ran before the note was writtenAnalyst desk
Mercer, Oakes, Nash, Ellis, Yates, Talbot and Archer. The desk: named AI agents, not people. Each reads one slice of the evidence and nothing else — no outside knowledge, no browsing — so every finding traces to a source you can open.
Reads the XBRL figures companies file with the SEC — revenue, margins, income, debt and share count, quarter by quarter — and reports which way the trend is running.
Revenue was $67,307,000,000 in fiscal Q1 2026 (2024-09-02 to 2024-11-24, 3mo), $63,723,000,000 in fiscal Q2 2026 (2024-11-25 to 2025-02-16, 3mo) and $70,527,000,000 in fiscal Q3 2026 (2026-02-16 to 2026-05-10, 3mo).
XBRL companyfacts · 0000909832-25-000169Operating income was $2,463,000,000 in fiscal Q1 2026, $2,316,000,000 in fiscal Q2 2026 and $2,815,000,000 in fiscal Q3 2026, implying operating margins of ~3.66% (Q1), ~3.63% (Q2) and ~3.99% (Q3) when compared to each quarter's revenue.
XBRL companyfacts · 0000909832-26-000051Reads the filings themselves, above all the year-over-year diff of Item 1A risk factors: which risks a company added, dropped or quietly reworded since its last annual report.
Which filings the desk reads
The desk reads the annual 10-K in full — its risk factors, and how they changed since last year. Quarterly 10-Qs and event filings (8-Ks, insider Form 4s) are listed for context but not read line by line: the 10-K is where the material risk disclosures live. A brand-new company, or one we have only just begun tracking, may have no annual report on file yet — its risk analysis fills in once that lands.
A newly added risk disclosure states that the company's financial and operational performance is highly dependent on U.S. and Canadian operations, which comprised 86% and 84% of net sales and operating income in 2025, and that within the U.S. the company is highly dependent on its California operations, which comprised 26% of U.S. net sales in 2025.
10-K filed 2025-10-08The 10-K filed October 8, 2025 reports that membership fee revenue increased 10% in 2025, membership renewal rates at the end of 2025 were 92.3% in the U.S. and Canada and 89.8% worldwide, and that the increase in membership fee income was approximately 40% attributable to membership fee increases effective September 1, 2024.
10-K filed 2025-10-08Reads the signal panel above — momentum, volatility, drawdown, relative strength and beta — and ranks each against the whole research universe rather than judging it in isolation.
Three-month momentum is -4.7% and six-month momentum is -3.7% as of 2026-08-26, with the six-month momentum ranked in the 24th percentile of a 547-stock research universe.
Moneyta signal set · 2026-08-26weakened in debateRelative strength versus SPY is negative over both six months (-14.6%) and the 12-month (12_1) window (-18.3%), and the six-month relative-strength rank is in the 24th percentile of 547.
Moneyta signal set · 2026-08-26Reads which funds hold the name and at what weight, plus insider Form 4 filings, to show the exposure you may already carry through index funds.
Institutional 13F-reported holdings totaled $304.44B as of 2026-03-31 (13F filings carry a 45-day reporting lag).
13F holdings · 4207 filers · as of 2026-03-31The reported institutional holder count was 4,207 as of 2026-03-31, with holder_count_delta_qoq of 99 and 2 new_positions reported in the quarter, while 211 positions were exited.
13F holdings · 4207 filers · as of 2026-03-31Reads recent headlines that are genuinely about this company, ignoring rating chatter and market-wide stories. Findings argue in the debate but never move the sentiment score.
Coverage includes reporting that Scan Health Plan and SCAN Group are partnering with Costco to enter the Medicare market with limited Medicare Advantage and Supplemental plans.
News · finance.yahoo.com · 2026-08-26Multiple articles ask whether Costco will pass tariff refunds to customers or otherwise respond to recent tariffs, with reporting that filings suggest Costco intends to cut prices on certain products.
News · slashgear.com · 2026-08-26Reads parsed Forms 3/4/5 — who bought or sold, at what size, and whether a 10b5-1 plan was involved. Flags clustered open-market officer buying; treats plan sales as routine and never counts a fund or 10%-holder as an officer.
Insiders reported total insider sales of "$2.3M" and insider purchases of "$0" in the six-month window (window_days: 180), with net shares of "-2315" and 0 distinct buyers.
Form 4 · DENMAN KENNETH D (Director) · $847k sold · 2026-06-23DENMAN KENNETH D (Director) sold 885 shares for "$847k" on 2026-06-23.
Form 4 · DENMAN KENNETH D (Director) · $847k sold · 2026-06-23Reads the implied-expectations math built from the company's own filings (the growth rate today's price would justify, and the multiples beside it) and argues whether the market's bar looks high or low for this business. Never turns the math into a target.
Price-to-earnings (trailing twelve months) is 52.28 as of the price date.
Valuation inputs · SEC XBRL + stored EOD closeMarket capitalization is $424,018,954,080 and enterprise value is $411,690,954,080 at the stated price.
Valuation inputs · SEC XBRL + stored EOD closeDebate and risk review
A bull and a bear contest the claims and the chair rules on each; the risk review stress-tests what survived.
A bull and a bear argue the analysts' claims across two rounds, then a chair rules on each one. Only what survives feeds the score — the argument is shown, not hidden, so you can judge the reasoning yourself.
Several company-specific fundamentals together support a favorable read: sequential quarterly revenue and EPS strength (fundamentals-0, fundamentals-2) alongside modestly expanding operating margins in Q3 (fundamentals-1) suggest resilient core profitability. Membership-driven revenue growth and high renewal rates (filings-1) plus comp-sales and new-warehouse contributions to annual net sales (filings-2) indicate recurring, customer-anchored sales momentum rather than a one-off spike. Balance-sheet strength is evident from a large increase in cash and a net cash position versus long-term debt (fundamentals-4, valuation-2), and robust operating cash flow on a trailing-twelve-month basis (valuation-3) supports financial flexibility. Institutional accumulation and ETF inclusion (ownership-2, ownership-3, ownership-4, ownership-5) corroborate professional investor conviction, which mitigates concerns about isolated insider sales (insider-0 through insider-5). Finally, low-to-negative market beta and correlation (market-2) imply performance is driven more by company fundamentals than market swings, providing context for short-term negative momentum readings (market-0, market-1).
Chair's verdict, claim by claim
Fragility · computed, not argued
balanced0.34
42 surviving claims rest on 19 distinct sources; the heaviest analyst carries 19% of them, and 98% of what the desk raised survived the debate.
The surviving read is moderately robust: 42 claims come from a relatively concentrated set of 19 sources, and one analyst accounts for nearly a fifth of the claims, so single-source bias and analyst-dependence are meaningful. The very high survival rate from the desk debate (98%) means claims were rarely eliminated, which increases confidence in consistency but also suggests the set may preserve shared assumptions — treat weaker or single-source assertions cautiously.
Peer context · computed, not argued
12-1 momentum ranks 3rd of 3 in Discount Stores (as of 2026-08-26).
6-month relative strength ranks 2nd of 3 in Discount Stores (as of 2026-08-26).
90-day volatility ranks 3rd of 3 in Discount Stores (as of 2026-08-26).
dividend yield ranks 3rd of 3 in Discount Stores (as of 2026-08-26).
Disconfirming evidence · base rates · falsifiers
Context
Outside consensus, and where this name already sits in your own portfolio.
Third-party consensus shown for context. It never enters Moneyta sentiment — when the two diverge, the debate above is where the why lives.
What this was built from
Every figure on this page traces to one of these. The desk reads only what is listed here — no outside knowledge, no browsing — and each card shows who read it and what it contributed to the score.
16 filings· 3 cited
SEC XBRL filings
Quarterly figures as filed with the SEC, read straight from EDGAR's structured data — not retyped or estimated.
Read by Mercer+0.8 to the score
4 documents· 3 cited
SEC filing documents
The filings themselves, including the year-over-year comparison of Item 1A risk factors.
Read by Oakes+0.2 to the score
1 signal set
Moneyta signal set
Computed from our own end-of-day price history and ranked against the whole research universe. No AI involved.
Read by Nash−0.3 to the score
2 holdings records· 1 cited
Fund holdings
Which funds hold this name and at what weight, plus insider Form 4 filings.
Read by Ellis+0.8 to the score
8 headlines· 2 cited
News coverage
Recent headlines about this company, rating chatter excluded and nothing published after the report date.
Read by Yatesnothing survived
5 filings· 1 cited
Insider filings
Parsed Forms 3/4/5 from EDGAR: named insiders, share counts, prices, and 10b5-1 plan state — stated and inferred flags kept apart.
Read by Talbot−0.9 to the score
1 computation
Valuation inputs
TTM cash-flow figures from the company's own XBRL filings, priced with the stored closing price. Implied growth and multiples only; no fair-value dollar figure reaches the desk, by design.
Read by Archercontext only
1 record· 0 cited
Company profile
Sector, industry and company details.
1 record· 0 cited
Analyst consensus
Third-party consensus, shown for context only — it never enters Moneyta sentiment.
Read means we pulled and handed it to an analyst; cited means a claim on this page points at it. Reading twelve quarters to state one trend is normal — the gap is shown rather than hidden.
Written by AI, checked against sources
The analysts, the bull–bear debate and the editor's note are AI agents reading only the evidence listed on this page. They can misread a filing or a headline, which is why every claim cites a source you can open and check yourself. The sentiment score is arithmetic over the claims that survived the debate, not a language model's opinion.
Educational analysis of published data. Moneyta does not give investment advice or make recommendations. Past patterns do not indicate future results.
The full terminal on COST Gold
Who holds it, who's buying, what the Street thinks: live behind the lock, updated as filings land.
Institutional holders
Net institutional flow, Q/Q
Largest holder position
Insider buys, 90 days
Clustered insider value
Street target range
The real figures are for members. Educational analysis, not advice.
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Educational analysis of published data. Moneyta does not give investment advice or make recommendations.