Costco just reported fiscal fourth-quarter earnings, with shares initially up about 1% following the report. The warehouse retailer delivered beats on both the top and bottom lines.
Quick Read:
Investors will now be watching membership trends, margins, and management’s fiscal 2027 commentary on the earnings call.
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That wraps up our initial coverage of Costco’s Q4 results. Thank you for stopping by!
Costco’s cash generation soared in fiscal 2026, with operating cash flow reaching $15.83 billion, up nearly 19% from $13.34 billion last year. This came even as spending on property and equipment increased to $6.44 billion.
Costco ended the year with $20.21 billion in cash, up more than $6 billion from $14.16 billion a year earlier. The company also returned capital to shareholders, spending $848 million on share repurchases and $2.46 billion on dividends during the year.
Costco reported $6.75 in diluted EPS, up 15% from $5.87 a year ago and ahead of the $6.53 Wall Street consensus. But part of that growth came from a one-time benefit.
The company said IEEPA tariff refunds added $0.15 per share to Q4 earnings, after accounting for some of the refunds Costco reinvested into increased value for members.
Excluding that benefit, EPS would have been roughly $6.60, still enough to clear Wall Street’s estimate. Net income increased nearly 15% to $3.00 billion.
Costco finished fiscal 2026 with another quarter of strong growth. Net sales increased 11.2% to $93.9 billion, while total company comparable sales rose 9.4%. Excluding gasoline prices and foreign exchange, comparable sales increased 6.7%.
The standout was digitally enabled sales, which climbed 19.5% reported and 19.8% adjusted. U.S. comparable sales rose 10.7%, or 7.2% after adjusting for gas and currency movements.
Costco's total company comparable sales rose 9.4% in Q4, but excluding gasoline prices and foreign exchange, the figure is 6.7%. The US gap is wider still: 10.7% reported against 7.2% adjusted. Digitally-enabled is the one place the spread flips, at 19.5% reported and 19.8% adjusted. Costco's in-line Q3 report sent shares down 3.91%, so investors will likely focus on the adjusted comparable sales figures during the 5 p.m. ET earnings call rather than the stronger headline numbers.
Balance sheet · Q3 2024 – Q2 2026
2:01pm ET
Costco walks into tonight's report with $13.3 billion in net cash as of Q2 2026, up from roughly flat net debt two years ago, after cutting total debt to $5.7 billion. That gives management room to absorb any core-on-core margin pressure, keep funding warehouse expansion, and revisit a special dividend while keeping the balance sheet intact.
$14B$6.6B$-1.1B
Valuation · as of Sep 24
3:01pm ET
Costco heads into tonight's numbers at 45x trailing earnings while revenue grows 11.6%, a multiple that leaves little room for a soft quarter. Shares sit near the low end of the 52-week range at $897.72 against a $1,094.76 high, yet the consensus target of $1,069.20 still implies a wide gap to close.
Insider activity — last 90 days
3:06pm ET
Five Costco executive vice presidents all bought on September 10, two weeks before tonight's report, likely as part of their compensation. This was part of seven insider buys totaling 29,749 shares over the past 90 days. Pierre Riel and Caton Frates each picked up 4,552 shares. The eight sells in the window, 15,407 shares for $9.2 million, look routine.
Thesis check
2:11pm ET
Tonight's setup leaves the flywheel argument intact, and the Q3 reaction tips the balance: a quarter that merely meets estimates already knocked nearly 4% off the stock. Core-on-core margin commentary decides whether this reads as strengthening or weakening by tomorrow's open.
Tracked 13F positioning
1:11pm ET
$1.1B—
$941M+0.2%
$817M-0.0%
$356M+1.8%
$284M+1.1%
$25M-0.0%
$23M+0.4%
$22M—
+ 3 more tracked holders
As of Jun 30, 2026 quarter end · 13F disclosures lag ~45 days — long positions only, tracked filers only.
Among the nine filers we track, positioning into tonight's report skewed toward accumulation as of June 30, with four buyers against two trimmers and two exits, led by Millennium roughly tripling its share count. Marshall Wace sits on top of the tracked list at about $1.1 billion. These are 13F disclosures roughly 45 days stale, so current positioning may differ.
Prediction markets
12:36pm ET
Traders on Polymarket have cooled hard on a Costco earnings beat, with the yes side sliding 21 percentage points to near even odds ahead of tonight's report. That fading conviction lines up with the margin worries flagged this morning, and it sets up a sharper reaction either way once the numbers hit after the bell.
94.4%59.0%23.6%
Options positioning
12:31pm ET
Friday-expiry options are priced for a real move, with at-the-money implied volatility at 57.1% around the 905 strike. The 0.97 put/call ratio reads as slightly defensive positioning into tonight's earnings report, and balanced readings like this often reflect hedging. Open interest clusters at 900 and 910 mark the levels traders are leaning on.
249 / 216
927 / 748
33 / 97
348 / 312
52 / 82
586 / 482
Last quarter — Q3 2026
12:26pm ET
Q3 showed Costco can top both lines and still see shares fall, with the selling continuing in the four months since. That sets a high bar for tonight: topping estimates alone has not been enough, so margin detail and membership economics carry the reaction.
$1k$944$886
Reported Thu, May 28 · next print Thu, Sep 24
Call preview · Q4 2026
12:21pm ET
Membership growth, warehouse expansion, digital and retail media, core-on-core margins and inflation have all come up on every one of the last four calls, making them familiar territory tonight. The swing factor is core-on-core margins and pricing, the thread we flagged this morning, because that is where tariff pass-through and Costco's habit of eating price shows up first. SG&A leverage, absent in Q4 25 but asked about in each quarter since, is the newer line of questioning worth tracking.
Costco reports fiscal fourth-quarter earnings after the bell, with Wall Street expecting $94.85 billion in revenue and $6.53 in EPS. Those numbers would cap fiscal 2026 with another period of double-digit growth.
Costco’s Q3 report largely met expectations but still sent shares tumbling 3.91%. This time around, investors will be watching core-on-core margins closely, particularly for any impact from gasoline prices and other factors outside Costco’s underlying retail business.
Beyond the headline numbers, membership fee income and renewal trends remain key indicators of the strength of Costco’s model. Investors will also be listening for updates on tariff refund timing and management’s planned pace of new warehouse openings heading into fiscal 2027.
Costco still trades at roughly 45x earnings, while the consensus analyst price target of $1,069 implies around 18% upside. Any meaningful deterioration in core margins or spending trends, however, could put pressure on Costco stock heading into the new fiscal year.
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