Costco Wholesale (COST) Competitors

Costco Wholesale logo
$1,071.85 -5.01 (-0.47%)
Closing price 04:00 PM Eastern
Extended Trading
$1,071.99 +0.14 (+0.01%)
As of 05:22 PM Eastern
Extended trading is trading that happens on electronic markets outside of regular trading hours. This is a fair market value extended hours price provided by Polygon.io. Learn more.

COST vs. WMT, PSMT, TGT, DG, DLTR, BJ, MNSO, OLLI, FIVE, and EXTO

Should you be buying Costco Wholesale stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Costco Wholesale include Walmart (WMT), PriceSmart (PSMT), Target (TGT), Dollar General (DG), Dollar Tree (DLTR), BJ's Wholesale Club (BJ), MINISO Group (MNSO), Ollie's Bargain Outlet (OLLI), Five Below (FIVE), and Almacenes Éxito (EXTO). These companies are all part of the "variety stores" industry.

Costco Wholesale vs.

Costco Wholesale (NASDAQ:COST) and Walmart (NYSE:WMT) are both large-cap retail/wholesale companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their risk, institutional ownership, media sentiment, profitability, earnings, valuation, dividends, community ranking and analyst recommendations.

Costco Wholesale has a beta of 0.84, meaning that its stock price is 16% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Walmart has a beta of 0.55, meaning that its stock price is 45% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Costco Wholesale has a net margin of 2.93% compared to Walmart's net margin of 2.92%. Costco Wholesale's return on equity of 32.31% beat Walmart's return on equity.

Company Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets
Costco Wholesale2.93% 32.31% 10.55%
Walmart 2.92%21.78%7.73%

Costco Wholesale pays an annual dividend of $4.64 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.4%. Walmart pays an annual dividend of $0.83 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.8%. Costco Wholesale pays out 27.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Walmart pays out 34.1% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. Costco Wholesale has increased its dividend for 20 consecutive years and Walmart has increased its dividend for 52 consecutive years. Walmart is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

Costco Wholesale currently has a consensus price target of $1,021.93, suggesting a potential downside of 5.01%. Walmart has a consensus price target of $99.17, suggesting a potential downside of 5.02%. Given Costco Wholesale's higher possible upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Costco Wholesale is more favorable than Walmart.

Company Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score
Costco Wholesale
0 Sell rating(s)
8 Hold rating(s)
19 Buy rating(s)
0 Strong Buy rating(s)
2.70
Walmart
0 Sell rating(s)
2 Hold rating(s)
28 Buy rating(s)
1 Strong Buy rating(s)
2.97

Walmart has higher revenue and earnings than Costco Wholesale. Walmart is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Costco Wholesale, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

CompanyGross RevenuePrice/Sales RatioNet IncomeEarnings Per SharePrice/Earnings Ratio
Costco Wholesale$254.45B1.88$7.37B$17.0363.17
Walmart$648.13B1.29$15.51B$2.4442.85

Costco Wholesale received 294 more outperform votes than Walmart when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 72.02% of users gave Costco Wholesale an outperform vote while only 61.69% of users gave Walmart an outperform vote.

CompanyUnderperformOutperform
Costco WholesaleOutperform Votes
1856
72.02%
Underperform Votes
721
27.98%
WalmartOutperform Votes
1562
61.69%
Underperform Votes
970
38.31%

68.5% of Costco Wholesale shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 26.8% of Walmart shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.2% of Costco Wholesale shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 45.6% of Walmart shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

In the previous week, Costco Wholesale had 14 more articles in the media than Walmart. MarketBeat recorded 167 mentions for Costco Wholesale and 153 mentions for Walmart. Walmart's average media sentiment score of 1.16 beat Costco Wholesale's score of 1.12 indicating that Walmart is being referred to more favorably in the news media.

Company Very Positive Positive Neutral Negative Very Negative Overall Sentiment
Costco Wholesale
115 Very Positive mention(s)
14 Positive mention(s)
19 Neutral mention(s)
4 Negative mention(s)
1 Very Negative mention(s)
Positive
Walmart
93 Very Positive mention(s)
16 Positive mention(s)
35 Neutral mention(s)
3 Negative mention(s)
0 Very Negative mention(s)
Positive

Summary

Costco Wholesale beats Walmart on 13 of the 22 factors compared between the two stocks.

Get Costco Wholesale News Delivered to You Automatically

Sign up to receive the latest news and ratings for COST and its competitors with MarketBeat's FREE daily newsletter.

New MarketBeat Followers Over Time

This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding {thisCompany.Symbol} and its top 5 competitors to their watchlist. Each company is represented with a line over a 90 day period.
Skip Chart

Media Sentiment Over Time

This chart shows the average media sentiment of NASDAQ and its competitors over the past 90 days as caculated by MarketBeat. The averaged score is equivalent to the following: Very Negative Sentiment <= -1.5, Negative Sentiment > -1.5 and <= -0.5, Neutral Sentiment > -0.5 and < 0.5, Positive Sentiment >= 0.5 and < 1.5, and Very Positive Sentiment >= 1.5.
Skip Chart

COST vs. The Competition

MetricCostco WholesaleVariety stores IndustryRetail SectorNASDAQ Exchange
Market Cap$477.51B$117.13B$26.46B$9.20B
Dividend Yield0.44%1.91%171.27%4.00%
P/E Ratio63.1720.36132.2319.36
Price / Sales1.881.243.3377.55
Price / Cash49.5518.4322.3338.88
Price / Book20.196.476.335.03
Net Income$7.37B$2.55B$678.19M$222.76M
7 Day Performance3.07%1.03%1.50%1.37%
1 Month Performance17.30%5.25%5.38%4.32%
1 Year Performance48.97%10.04%12.79%18.90%

Costco Wholesale Competitors List

CompanyMarketRankShare PriceAnalysts' Price Target1Y Price PerformanceMarket CapRevenueP/E RatioEmployee CountIndicator(s)
COST
Costco Wholesale
4.5545 of 5 stars
$1,071.85
-0.5%
$1,021.93
-4.7%
+50.8%$475.79B$254.45B62.94333,000Short Interest ↓
Positive News
WMT
Walmart
4.6527 of 5 stars
$102.77
+1.6%
$96.95
-5.7%
+86.4%$825.62B$648.13B42.182,100,000Upcoming Earnings
Analyst Forecast
Positive News
PSMT
PriceSmart
3.9168 of 5 stars
$94.65
+3.3%
$90.00
-4.9%
+18.7%$2.90B$4.91B20.8510,600Dividend Increase
Insider Trade
TGT
Target
4.8852 of 5 stars
$131.34
0.0%
$157.70
+20.1%
-11.9%$60.18B$107.41B13.93415,000Analyst Downgrade
DG
Dollar General
4.8462 of 5 stars
$74.06
+2.2%
$96.77
+30.7%
-44.7%$16.29B$38.69B12.20163,000
DLTR
Dollar Tree
4.1664 of 5 stars
$73.86
+1.7%
$85.58
+15.9%
-48.5%$15.88B$30.60B-15.48211,826
BJ
BJ's Wholesale Club
1.8298 of 5 stars
$106.43
+1.9%
$94.88
-10.9%
+58.0%$14.06B$19.97B25.5834,000
MNSO
MINISO Group
3.7959 of 5 stars
$23.22
+0.3%
$20.90
-10.0%
+38.7%$7.25B$1.58B20.923,696Gap Up
OLLI
Ollie's Bargain Outlet
3.9499 of 5 stars
$103.25
-1.4%
$118.07
+14.4%
+35.9%$6.33B$2.25B30.8211,500Short Interest ↓
FIVE
Five Below
4.3375 of 5 stars
$90.01
-0.1%
$111.32
+23.7%
-51.0%$4.95B$3.56B18.5622,000Short Interest ↑
EXTO
Almacenes Éxito
N/A$3.64
+0.3%
N/A-31.1%$590.52M$4.90B0.0043,134Gap Down
High Trading Volume

Related Companies and Tools


This page (NASDAQ:COST) was last updated on 2/14/2025 by MarketBeat.com Staff
From Our Partners