Market Slump Deepens as Costco Shines – Experts Reveal What’s Next

Costco Stock (COST) Today, November 14, 2025: Dividend Payout, Price Action and What Investors Should Watch Next

Costco Wholesale’s stock is trading quietly but on an important milestone day for shareholders: the company is paying out its latest quarterly dividend while investors digest strong recent sales data, robust membership trends and still‑rich valuations.


Costco stock price today (November 14, 2025)

As of late trading on Friday, November 14, 2025, Costco Wholesale (NASDAQ: COST) shares are changing hands at about $926 per share, with an intraday high near $931 and a low around $916. [1]

Key snapshot:

  • Last price: ~$926.26
  • Day range: ~$915.65 – $930.99
  • Market cap: ~$410 billion [2]
  • 12‑month range: about $871.71 – $1,078.23 [3]
  • Trailing P/E ratio: ~50.8
  • Beta: ~0.98 (moves slightly less than the broader market) [4]

Technical readings from independent trading desks show Costco trading below its 20‑, 50‑ and 200‑day moving averages, with many indicators pointing to a sideways or mildly bearish short‑term setup. Traders Union notes Costco recently hovered around $919 and expects the stock to consolidate mostly between $915 and $940 over the next few days, while their models see less than a 20% probability of a sharp rebound in the immediate term. [5]

Separately, StockTradersDaily’s AI‑driven framework characterises sentiment as “neutral” across near‑, mid‑ and long‑term horizons, with key levels clustered around roughly $898–$951 on the downside and up to $1,006 on the upside. [6]

In plain English: COST is drifting, not breaking, after a multi‑year run that already priced in much of Costco’s quality and growth.


Dividend day: Costco pays $1.30 per share

Today is dividend payday for Costco shareholders.

  • Costco’s Board declared a quarterly cash dividend of $1.30 per share on October 15, 2025.
  • The dividend is payable today, November 14, 2025, to shareholders of record as of October 31, 2025. [7]
  • At the current share price, the annualised dividend of $5.20 equates to a yield of roughly 0.55–0.60%. [8]

Dividend trackers note that Costco has now increased its regular dividend for around 20 consecutive years, with dividend per share growth averaging roughly 12–13% annually over one‑, three‑, five‑ and ten‑year periods. [9]

According to Costco’s own dividend history and third‑party databases:

  • Ex‑dividend date: October 31, 2025
  • Payment date: November 14, 2025
  • Recent quarterly pattern (2025): $1.30 per share paid in February, May, August and now November. [10]

For income investors, the headline yield is modest. But Costco’s appeal has traditionally been dividend growth plus occasional special dividends, not a high current payout.


Today’s Costco news: flows, fundamentals and expansion

Several Costco‑related headlines have hit the tape specifically on November 14, 2025, alongside earlier corporate updates that frame today’s trading.

1. Institutional investors add to Costco positions

Multiple SEC‑driven news alerts show continued institutional interest in COST:

  • L & S Advisors Inc increased its Costco stake by 24%, adding 1,388 shares to bring its position to 7,176 sharesworth roughly $7.1 million. [11]
  • Advisors Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings by 3.0%, now owning 41,151 shares valued at about $40.7 million. [12]
  • Evolution Wealth Advisors LLC initiated a Costco position with 314 shares, worth roughly $311,000 at time of filing. [13]

MarketBeat’s aggregation of these and other filings shows that hedge funds and other institutions control around 68.5% of Costco’s outstanding shares, underscoring the stock’s status as a major institutional core holding. [14]

At the same time, other funds such as Penserra Capital Management have reported selling down part of their Costco stake, highlighting ongoing portfolio rebalancing rather than a one‑way institutional trade. [15]

2. Fresh technical and trading commentary

Today’s news flow also includes trading‑oriented analysis:

  • StockTradersDaily emphasises that Costco’s price action fits a “mid‑channel oscillation pattern” with neutral sentiment, suggesting a wait‑and‑see stance for rotational strategies that move capital between sectors. [16]
  • Traders Union highlights that COST is trading below its short‑ and longer‑term moving averages, with indicators like MACD and ADX leaning modestly bearish, while RSI around the high‑40s points to neither overbought nor oversold conditions. Their model keeps near‑term expectations in a $915–$940 trading corridor. [17]

For everyday investors, the takeaway is that short‑term traders see Costco consolidating, not collapsing or breaking out.

3. Strong October sales underpin the narrative

While not from today, Costco’s most recent operating updates are central to how markets interpret COST on Nov. 14:

  • For the retail month of October 2025, Costco reported net sales of $21.75 billion, up 8.6% year‑over‑year.
  • Net sales for the first nine weeks of the new fiscal year reached $48.33 billion, up 8.3% from the prior year. [18]
  • Comparable sales rose 6.6% for the month and 6.1% over nine weeks, with digitally‑enabled sales up 16.6% and 21.6%, respectively. [19]

Simply Wall St’s analysis, also published November 14, 2025, argues that this mid‑single‑digit comp growth plus high single‑digit total sales growth fits Costco’s long‑term investment story: a steady, membership‑driven flywheel with growing e‑commerce penetration. They also highlight that the company’s narrative projects revenue of about $329 billion and earnings of $10.4 billion by 2028, implying ~7% annual revenue growth and a multi‑year earnings ramp. [20]

4. Membership economics: higher fees, but high loyalty

Costco’s recent filings and independent coverage show that the membership model remains the heart of the story:

  • Fiscal 2025 membership fee revenue reached $5.323 billion, up from $4.828 billion a year earlier – roughly 10% growth. Q4 alone saw fees rise from $1.512 billion to $1.724 billion, about 14% year‑over‑year. [21]
  • Membership prices were raised effective September 1, 2024: standard memberships increased from $60 to $65, and Executive memberships from $120 to $130. [22]
  • Despite higher prices, a recent report notes 68.3 million individual members and 12.7 million business membersby the end of fiscal 2025, with renewal rates around 92% in the U.S. and ~90% globally. [23]

Simply Wall St also points to newer Executive membership perks, like exclusive early shopping hours, which reportedly lifted weekly U.S. sales by about 1% and encouraged upgrades into higher‑margin membership tiers. [24]

In short, members are paying more, and they’re largely happy to stay—a powerful combination when much of Costco’s profit comes from membership fees rather than merchandise mark‑ups.

5. Expansion: another Costco Business Centre in Canada

On the operations front, Costco continues to expand:

  • Canada’s eighth Costco Business Centre has just opened in New Westminster, British Columbia, adding roughly 290 jobs and offering a curated assortment aimed at small businesses and food‑service customers. [25]

While a single warehouse won’t move the stock on its own, it reinforces the steady, measured global expansion that underpins Costco’s long‑term growth outlook.


Costco’s latest financial results: growth with discipline

Costco’s fourth‑quarter and full‑year fiscal 2025 earnings (for the period ended August 31, 2025) remain an essential backdrop for today’s trading:

  • Q4 2025 net sales: $84.4 billion, up 8.0% from $78.2 billion in the prior year.
  • Full‑year net sales: $269.9 billion, up 8.1% from $249.6 billion. [26]
  • Q4 diluted EPS: $5.87, versus $5.29 a year earlier. Net income rose to $2.61 billion from $2.35 billion. [27]
  • Full‑year diluted EPS: $18.21, up from $16.56 in fiscal 2024. [28]
  • Comparable sales (adjusted for fuel and FX) grew 6–8% across the U.S., Canada and other international markets, with e‑commerce comps up roughly mid‑teens. [29]

MarketBeat’s breakdown highlights return on equity of ~30% and a net margin just under 3%, consistent with Costco’s long‑standing model of thin product margins offset by scale and membership revenue. [30]

Put together, Costco is still delivering high‑quality, mid‑single‑digit comp growth and high‑single‑digit revenue growth at enormous scale—part of why the stock commands a premium multiple.


Analyst sentiment and valuation: high quality, high price

Wall Street remains broadly positive on Costco, but the debate centres on valuation:

  • Across several aggregators, around 23–30 analysts cover COST, with an overall “Buy” / “Moderate Buy” consensus. [31]
  • MarketBeat reports an average 12‑month price target of about $1,063.88, while Public.com cites a similar consensus near $1,069. [32]
  • From today’s ~$926 share price, that implies roughly 15% upside on average analyst estimates.

However, that upside comes with a lofty P/E near 51 and a price‑to‑earnings‑growth (PEG) ratio around 5.5, meaning investors are paying a high price for Costco’s growth and resilience. [33]

Recent analyst activity has included:

  • Some firms trimming price targets (e.g., Evercore, Mizuho, Morgan Stanley) while keeping “outperform” or “overweight” ratings. [34]
  • Others maintaining neutral or “peer perform” stances amid concerns that Costco’s valuation already bakes in much of its medium‑term growth. [35]

So while the Street largely likes Costco the business, there is less agreement on Costco the stock at 50x earnings.


How today fits into the bigger picture for COST

A recent (and paywalled) commentary from The Motley Fool, summarised in public snippets, notes that Costco shares have been roughly flat year‑to‑date even as the S&P 500 climbs, suggesting 2025 has been a “digesting gains” year for COST after prior outperformance. [36]

Overlay today’s news on top of that:

  • Fundamentals: Strong Q4 and October numbers, resilient membership growth, and improving digital sales all support a solid, steady growth profile. [37]
  • Capital return: A growing, reliable dividend with a long track record of increases—even if the headline yield is low. [38]
  • Ownership: Institutions are broadly adding to positions, with some trims on the margin, but overall ownership remains high. [39]
  • Valuation and technicals: The stock still trades at a premium, and multiple technical services now frame the near‑term picture as sideways with a slight downside tilt, consistent with a market that is waiting for the next catalyst. [40]

In other words, nothing about today’s headlines fundamentally changes the Costco story. Instead, they reinforce it: stable, membership‑driven growth, ongoing expansion, strong institutional sponsorship and a valuation that demands continued execution.


Upcoming catalysts for Costco stock

Investors eyeing COST after today’s dividend may want to keep a close watch on the next few dates on Costco’s investor calendar:

  • November 2025 sales report: Scheduled for December 3, 2025, giving another read on comp sales and digital momentum heading into the key holiday season. [41]
  • Q1 2026 earnings call: Planned for December 11, 2025, which will highlight early holiday performance, membership trends and any updates on capital allocation. [42]
  • Annual shareholders’ meeting: Currently slated for January 15, 2026, a forum that can surface strategic updates around international expansion, warehouse openings and long‑term plans. [43]

These events are likely to be far more important for Costco’s medium‑term share price than today’s relatively calm trading session.


What this means for investors (not financial advice)

From a high level, today’s data points add up to:

Bullish pillars

  • Robust sales growth at enormous scale.
  • Sticky, growing membership base despite higher fees.
  • Long track record of dividend growth and occasional specials.
  • High institutional ownership and broadly positive analyst coverage.

Key risks

  • rich valuation (50x earnings) that leaves little room for execution missteps.
  • Margin pressure from labor costs, shrink, and competition, which Costco itself flags in filings. [44]
  • Potential slowing membership growth as penetration matures, particularly in North America. [45]

Whether Costco stock is right for you depends on your time horizon, risk tolerance and portfolio mix. Long‑term investors often view COST as a compounder at a premium price, while shorter‑term traders see a range‑bound large‑cap retail name until the next major surprise.

This article is for information and general commentary only and is not investment advice. Before buying or selling any security, consider speaking with a licensed financial professional and reviewing your own financial situation.

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References

1. tradersunion.com, 2. www.marketbeat.com, 3. www.marketbeat.com, 4. www.marketbeat.com, 5. tradersunion.com, 6. news.stocktradersdaily.com, 7. investor.costco.com, 8. www.koyfin.com, 9. www.koyfin.com, 10. investor.costco.com, 11. www.marketbeat.com, 12. www.marketbeat.com, 13. www.marketbeat.com, 14. www.marketbeat.com, 15. www.marketbeat.com, 16. news.stocktradersdaily.com, 17. tradersunion.com, 18. investor.costco.com, 19. www.stocktitan.net, 20. simplywall.st, 21. investor.costco.com, 22. customerservice.costco.com, 23. www.spokesman.com, 24. simplywall.st, 25. sg.finance.yahoo.com, 26. investor.costco.com, 27. investor.costco.com, 28. investor.costco.com, 29. investor.costco.com, 30. www.marketbeat.com, 31. www.marketbeat.com, 32. www.marketbeat.com, 33. www.marketbeat.com, 34. www.marketbeat.com, 35. www.marketbeat.com, 36. www.fool.com, 37. investor.costco.com, 38. investor.costco.com, 39. www.marketbeat.com, 40. tradersunion.com, 41. investor.costco.com, 42. investor.costco.com, 43. investor.costco.com, 44. investor.costco.com, 45. www.spokesman.com

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