On Wednesday, Costco Wholesale Corp. (COST, Financial) reported 14.3% year-over-year growth in net sales to $14.94 billion for December 2017.
Costco’s same store sales for the month increased by 11.5% year-over-year with 22.4% growth in North America and 17.0% internationally.
Costco said that when the effects of gasoline prices and currency swings were not taken into consideration, comparable sales of the company increased by 8.8% year over year. These sales are shared as 9.1% growth in the U.S., 6.1% in Canada and 9.6% internationally.
The company said that total and comparable sales for the five-week December month were positively impacted by approximately 2.5% due to the additional day in December 2017 compared to the same month of December 2016.
Costco Wholesale Corp. was trading Thursday at $190.58 per share on the Nasdaq stock exchange. The stock gained nearly 17% over the last 52 weeks and underperformed the S&P 500 index by 2.6%:
Source: Yahoo Finance
The 52-week range was from $150 to $195.35.
The retailer has a market capitalization of $83.68 billion. The price-book (P/B) ratio is 7.55 versus an industry median of 1.85, the price-sales (P/S) ratio is 0.64 versus an industry median of 0.49 and the price-earnings (P/E) ratio is 30.27 versus an industry median of 19.33.
The Peter Lynch chart says that Costco is trading above the earnings line with and without NRI:
With a value of 30.27 versus an industry median of 19.33, the forward price-earnings ratio is also higher than peers. However, when the forward price earnings ratio is multiplied by an earnings per share of $6.71 – calculated as a weighed average of forecasted earnings for full fiscal years 2018 and 2019 – it yields a value of $203.11 per share. The latter is nearly 6% higher than the current share price.
With an average price target of $199.64 per share, analysts foresee nearly 5% upside in the current market value.
The recommendation rating is 2.1 out of 5. This means that as of today the minority of analysts suggest increasing holdings in Costco Wholesale Corp.
The retailer is a dividend payer through the distribution of quarterly dividends and has a forward dividend & yield of $2.00 and 1.06%. The latter is on average lower than the industry's 2.05%.
Disclosure: No positions in Costco Wholesale Corp.
