Costco Wholesale Corp. (NASDAQ: COST) delivered a fiscal fourth-quarter earnings beat that remained intact after stripping out a one-time tariff-refund benefit, even as seven of eight Friday price-target changes following the report were reductions.
Costco shares were at $891.41 in premarket trading at 8:30 a.m. ET Friday, down 0.51% from Thursday’s $896.48 close, according to Yahoo Finance. The stock had fallen 0.91% during Thursday’s regular session.
Costco reported diluted earnings of $6.75 per share, up from $5.87 a year earlier. The company said the result included a non-recurring $0.15-per-share benefit from IEEPA tariff refunds, net of partial reinvestment into increased member value. Excluding that benefit, adjusted EPS was about $6.60, still above the $6.53 LSEG consensus estimate. Total revenue reached $95.72 billion, compared with the $94.86 billion expected.
Eight Friday Target Changes Ranged From $950 to $1,143
D.A. Davidson raised its Costco target to $1,040 from $1,000 while maintaining a Neutral rating. Raymond James lowered its target to $1,050 from $1,100 while keeping Outperform. JPMorgan cut its target to $1,015 from $1,100 with an Overweight rating, while Mizuho reduced its target to $1,065 from $1,100 and retained Outperform.
At the lower end of Friday’s fresh targets, Wells Fargo moved to $950 from $1,000 while maintaining Equalweight, and Truist cut its target to $955 from $1,011 while keeping Hold. At the higher end, Goldman Sachs maintained Buy while trimming its target to $1,134 from $1,159, and Bernstein maintained Outperform with a $1,143 target, down by $1.
Raymond James explicitly tied its reduction to modestly lower valuation-multiple assumptions and moderating membership growth, even as it noted that adjusted earnings came in slightly ahead of expectations.
Q4 Net Sales Rose 11.2% as Adjusted Comps Gained 6.7%
Costco’s company-reported net sales rose 11.2% to $93.9 billion from $84.4 billion a year earlier. The company also generated $1.85 billion in membership-fee income, up from $1.72 billion, bringing reported quarterly revenue to $95.72 billion.
Total-company comparable sales increased 9.4%, while adjusted comparable sales excluding gasoline-price and foreign-exchange effects rose 6.7%. Digitally enabled comparable sales advanced 19.5%, or 19.8% excluding foreign-exchange effects.
Costco ended the quarter with 84.1 million paid members, up 3.8% year over year, while U.S. and Canada renewal rates improved 10 basis points sequentially to 92.3%. Worldwide renewals also rose 10 basis points to 89.8%.
MarketScreener data put Costco at roughly 39.3 times estimated fiscal 2027 earnings.
Separately, Costco Tokenized Stock (Ondo), or COSTon, was at exactly $896.96 at 8:20 a.m. ET Friday, down 1.71% over the previous 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap. CoinMarketCap identifies COSTon as Ondo’s tokenized version of Costco stock. Its 24-hour performance is distinct from COST’s Nasdaq premarket move and covers a different trading window.