Costco Price Prediction: A $1,200 Target Comes Into Focus

Costco (NASDAQ:COST | COST Price Prediction) has spent the summer digesting a monster fiscal 2025, and my read of the data is that the setup for the next twelve months is more constructive than the stock price suggests.

Our 24/7 Wall St. price target for the next 12 months is $1,011.88, implying 12.13% upside from the current $902.38 close. The $1,200 level comes into focus further out: our five-year base case hits $1,204.89 by late 2029.

A Rare Discount on a Compounder

Costco is down 2.49% over the past week and 4.44% over the past month, yet still up 5.11% year to date. The pullback follows a Q3 fiscal 2026 report that was quietly excellent: EPS of $4.93 on revenue of $70.53 billion, up 11.58% year over year, with comparable sales of 9.8% reported and 6.6% adjusted for gas and FX.

Membership fees rose 10.7% to $1.373 billion, and the worldwide renewal rate held at 89.7%. The GLP-1 halo is showing up too, from protein snacks to pharmacy market share gains tied to Wegovy and Ozempic inclusion in the member prescription program.

Why Bulls See a Path to $1,125

The bull scenario in our model reaches $1,125.32, a 24.71% total return. The drivers are stacking up. Executive memberships hit 41.2 million, up 9.6%, and now represent 75% of net sales.

Digitally-enabled comp sales rose 21.5% with site traffic up 37%, and AI-generated search traffic grew at a triple-digit rate with the highest conversion rate on the site. Costco is targeting 940 total warehouses by fiscal year-end. The consensus analyst target of $1,072.20 reflects 4 Strong Buy and 19 Buy ratings.

What Could Go Wrong

Our bear case lands at $935.21. The implied forward P/E on our model works out to roughly 45x, which leaves little room for a growth deceleration. Paid membership growth cooled to 4.1%, the softest reading in some time, and core-on-core margins were lower by nine basis points.

It should be noted that bulls have a real counterfactual here: management framed the pricing moves as “strategic, not reactionary,” reinvesting in eggs, beef, and Kirkland to protect long-term pricing authority.

How Costco Compares to Walmart and BJ’s

Walmart (NYSE:WMT) trades at a P/E of 38 with a market cap of $841 billion and fiscal 2026 revenue of $713 billion. Walmart’s FY27 adjusted EPS guidance of $2.80 to $2.87 implies mid-single-digit earnings growth, well below Costco’s double-digit trajectory. That gap is the core justification for COST’s premium.

BJ’s Wholesale Club (NYSE:BJ) is the cleanest warehouse-club comparable at a $11.3 billion market cap, with Q2 comp sales up 11.9% and adjusted EPS guidance raised to $4.60 to $4.80. BJ’s is growing comps faster on a small base, but Costco’s 89.7% renewal rate and scale keep the premium reasonable.

Costco Price Prediction 2026-2030

I’m a buyer at the 24/7 Wall St. price target of $1,011.88 with 90% confidence. Costco is a rare business where the model, the fundamentals, and the analyst community all point the same direction.

I’d add here if the next earnings report shows executive membership penetration ticking above 76%. I’d stay on the sidelines if forward comps excluding gas break below the 6% to 7% range management pointed to.

These projections assume Costco continues executing on membership growth, warehouse expansion, and Kirkland Signature margin gains. Significant upside or downside could come from a special dividend, tariff refund timing, or a step-change in AI-driven search referrals.

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