Costco Wholesale Corp. (COST) today announced its dividend for the first quarter of 2018. As authorized by its board of directors, Costco will pay a cash dividend of 50 cents per ordinary share.
The dividend will be paid on March 2 to shareholders of record as of Feb. 16. The ex-dividend date is Feb. 15. The dividend is on par with the previous payment. If it is held constant by Costco for the next quarters, it will result in a forward annual dividend of $2 per ordinary share.
According to Costco's current market valuation, the forward annual dividend yield is 1.01%. The dividend pay-out ratio is currently 31%.
The company closed the first quarter of fiscal year 2018 with earnings per share of $1.45, which was backed by revenue of $31.8 billion. Quarterly earnings and sales increased 17% and 13.2% compared to the same period of fiscal 2017.
For the second quarter of fiscal 2018, analysts expect Costco to report EPS of $1.45 on revenue of $32.61 billion. For full fiscal 2018, consensus is for an EPS of $6.66 and for a revenue of $138.48 billion.
GuruFocus gives Costco a profitability and growth rating of 7 out of 10 and a financial strength rating of 7 out of 10.
The stock has gained 20.51% on the New York Stock Exchange over the twelve trailing months timeframe, underperforming the S&P 500 index by 3.6%.
Source: Yahoo Finance
Costco is trading around $197.91 per share with a market capitalization of $86.9 billion, a price-book (P/B) ratio of 7.86, a price-sales (P/S) ratio of 0.66 and a price-earnings (P/E) ratio of 31.41.
The 52-weeks range is $150.00 to $199.88.
The forward P/E ratio is 29.59. When you multiply that by the forecasted 2018 EPS of $6.66, it yields a value of $197.07 per share. When the forward P/E ratio is multiplied by the forecasted 2019 EPS of $7.46, it yields a value of $220.74 per share.
The average target price is $208.28 per share and the recommendation rating is 2.1 out of 5.
(Disclosure: I have no positions in Costco.)
