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Costco Wholesale (COST) Competitors

Costco Wholesale logo
$929.66 -9.09 (-0.97%)
Closing price 03/28/2025 04:00 PM Eastern
Extended Trading
$928.34 -1.32 (-0.14%)
As of 03/28/2025 07:59 PM Eastern
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COST vs. WMT, PSMT, TGT, DG, DLTR, BJ, OLLI, MNSO, FIVE, and HD

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), Ollie's Bargain Outlet (OLLI), MINISO Group (MNSO), Five Below (FIVE), and Home Depot (HD).

Costco Wholesale vs.

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

Walmart has a beta of 0.53, indicating that its stock price is 47% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Costco Wholesale has a beta of 0.82, indicating that its stock price is 18% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Walmart pays an annual dividend of $0.94 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.1%. Costco Wholesale pays an annual dividend of $4.64 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.5%. Walmart pays out 39.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Costco Wholesale pays out 27.1% 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. Walmart has increased its dividend for 53 consecutive years and Costco Wholesale has increased its dividend for 21 consecutive years. Walmart is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

In the previous week, Walmart had 22 more articles in the media than Costco Wholesale. MarketBeat recorded 143 mentions for Walmart and 121 mentions for Costco Wholesale. Costco Wholesale's average media sentiment score of 1.07 beat Walmart's score of 1.03 indicating that Costco Wholesale is being referred to more favorably in the news media.

Company Very Positive Positive Neutral Negative Very Negative Overall Sentiment
Walmart
94 Very Positive mention(s)
18 Positive mention(s)
20 Neutral mention(s)
9 Negative mention(s)
2 Very Negative mention(s)
Positive
Costco Wholesale
83 Very Positive mention(s)
9 Positive mention(s)
16 Neutral mention(s)
7 Negative mention(s)
2 Very Negative mention(s)
Positive

Costco Wholesale received 289 more outperform votes than Walmart when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 72.04% of users gave Costco Wholesale an outperform vote while only 61.85% of users gave Walmart an outperform vote.

CompanyUnderperformOutperform
WalmartOutperform Votes
1576
61.85%
Underperform Votes
972
38.15%
Costco WholesaleOutperform Votes
1865
72.04%
Underperform Votes
724
27.96%

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
Walmart$680.99B1.00$15.51B$2.4135.30
Costco Wholesale$264.09B1.56$7.37B$17.1354.27

Walmart presently has a consensus target price of $103.17, suggesting a potential upside of 21.26%. Costco Wholesale has a consensus target price of $1,029.00, suggesting a potential upside of 10.69%. Given Walmart's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Walmart is more favorable than Costco Wholesale.

Company Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score
Walmart
0 Sell rating(s)
2 Hold rating(s)
29 Buy rating(s)
1 Strong Buy rating(s)
2.97
Costco Wholesale
0 Sell rating(s)
8 Hold rating(s)
21 Buy rating(s)
0 Strong Buy rating(s)
2.72

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

Costco Wholesale has a net margin of 2.93% compared to Walmart's net margin of 2.85%. Costco Wholesale's return on equity of 32.31% beat Walmart's return on equity.

Company Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets
Walmart2.85% 21.87% 7.84%
Costco Wholesale 2.93%32.31%10.55%

Summary

Costco Wholesale beats Walmart on 12 of the 22 factors compared between the two stocks.

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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.
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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.
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COST vs. The Competition

MetricCostco WholesaleVariety stores IndustryRetail SectorNASDAQ Exchange
Market Cap$412.47B$99.10B$24.14B$7.83B
Dividend Yield0.50%2.11%171.18%4.00%
P/E Ratio54.5918.7023.2718.68
Price / Sales1.560.854.0691.04
Price / Cash48.7917.7219.4934.64
Price / Book17.455.955.534.23
Net Income$7.37B$2.55B$784.47M$247.15M
7 Day Performance2.24%1.52%-0.21%-2.17%
1 Month Performance-11.34%-3.20%-3.58%-5.68%
1 Year Performance26.89%-4.50%-4.05%-0.66%

Costco Wholesale Competitors List

CompanyMarketRankShare PriceAnalysts' Price Target1Y Price PerformanceMarket CapRevenueP/E RatioEmployee CountIndicator(s)
COST
Costco Wholesale
4.642 of 5 stars
$929.66
-1.0%
$1,029.00
+10.7%
+26.9%$412.47B$264.09B54.59333,000Insider Trade
Analyst Revision
Positive News
WMT
Walmart
4.8586 of 5 stars
$87.56
+1.8%
$103.17
+17.8%
+41.4%$701.92B$680.99B36.332,300,000Positive News
PSMT
PriceSmart
3.2712 of 5 stars
$85.91
+2.6%
$90.00
+4.8%
+2.4%$2.63B$5.01B18.9212,000Positive News
TGT
Target
4.8945 of 5 stars
$108.43
+4.2%
$145.55
+34.2%
-41.5%$49.40B$106.57B11.50450,000Short Interest ↑
DG
Dollar General
4.0953 of 5 stars
$83.16
-0.6%
$92.26
+10.9%
-44.9%$18.29B$40.61B13.70185,800
DLTR
Dollar Tree
3.5453 of 5 stars
$69.74
+4.5%
$84.26
+20.8%
-45.4%$14.99B$31.22B-14.62210,600Earnings Report
Analyst Forecast
Analyst Revision
News Coverage
BJ
BJ's Wholesale Club
2.7482 of 5 stars
$110.79
+0.5%
$108.71
-1.9%
+47.9%$14.59B$20.50B26.6334,000Options Volume
OLLI
Ollie's Bargain Outlet
3.1853 of 5 stars
$108.22
+1.3%
$123.08
+13.7%
+42.3%$6.63B$2.27B32.3011,500Insider Trade
MNSO
MINISO Group
4.4319 of 5 stars
$18.38
-3.0%
$23.70
+29.0%
-9.2%$5.74B$13.84B16.553,696Earnings Report
Dividend Announcement
Analyst Upgrade
FIVE
Five Below
4.546 of 5 stars
$79.23
+3.9%
$102.16
+28.9%
-59.6%$4.36B$3.88B16.3420,200
HD
Home Depot
4.6966 of 5 stars
$363.97
+3.7%
$435.85
+19.7%
-6.7%$361.55B$159.51B24.73490,600Positive News
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This page (NASDAQ:COST) was last updated on 3/29/2025 by MarketBeat.com Staff
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