Costco Stock (COST) on December 4, 2025: Sales Surge, Tariff Lawsuit and Wall Street Targets Ahead of Earnings

Costco Wholesale Corporation (NASDAQ: COST) is back in the headlines today — not just for its November sales beat, but also for a fresh drop in its share price and a high‑stakes lawsuit over Trump‑era tariffs.

As of Thursday, December 4, 2025, Costco stock was trading around $890–$895, down roughly 3% intraday, after opening near $907. ^[1] That leaves COST about 17% below its 52‑week high of $1,078.23 and only a few percent above its 52‑week low around $871.71. ^[2] Despite a roughly 1–1.5% gain year‑to‑date, the stock is badly lagging the S&P 500’s mid‑teens advance in 2025. ^[3]

At the same time, Costco just posted another quarter of high‑single‑digit sales growth, is ramping its e‑commerce business, has raised membership fees without losing its fan base, and is suing the Trump administration for a refund of tariffs that could affect prices in 2026. ^[4]

Here’s a deep dive into all the major Costco stock news, forecasts and analyses as of December 4, 2025.

Key takeaways for Costco stock on December 4, 2025

Stock price: Around $893, down about 3% today, near the lower end of its 52‑week range ($871.71–$1,078.23). ^[5]
Valuation: Trading at roughly 50x trailing earnings and the mid‑40s on forward earnings, a substantial premium to the overall market. ^[6]
Sales momentum: November 2025 net sales rose 8.1%; fiscal Q1 net sales rose 8.2%, with comparable sales up 6.4–6.9% and digital sales up about 20.5%. ^[7]
Earnings preview: For Q1 FY2026 (results due December 11, 2025), Wall Street expects EPS of about $4.24(≈11% growth) on ~$67 billion in revenue (≈8% growth). ^[8]
Analyst stance: Overall “Buy/Moderate Buy” consensus with average 12‑month price targets clustered around $1,030–$1,090, implying mid‑teens to high‑teens upside from today’s price. ^[9]
Contrarian notes: Zacks currently assigns Costco a Rank #4 (Sell) and an Earnings ESP of about ‑0.7%, suggesting a low‑confidence setup for a near‑term earnings beat. ^[10]
Structural story: Membership fee hikes, strong loyalty, rapid e‑commerce growth and steady international expansion remain the long‑term drivers. ^[11]
Macro/legal overhang: Costco is suing the Trump administration for a refund of tariffs paid under emergency powers, a case tied to a pending Supreme Court decision that could affect its costs and potentially customer prices in 2026. ^[12]

Costco stock today: premium price, muted 2025 returns

On December 4, 2025, Costco shares are trading near $893, down more than $25 on the day, as investors digest strong sales numbers and brace for next week’s earnings release. ^[13]

From a longer‑term perspective:

52‑week high: $1,078.23 (February 13, 2025)
52‑week low: $871.71 (April 7, 2025)
Latest price: about $893–$895
Five‑year total return: roughly 145–150%, underscoring Costco’s status as a long‑term compounder. ^[14]

Yet 2025 has been underwhelming. A MarketBeat analysis notes that Costco has returned only about 1.3% year‑to‑date, while shareholders have already endured corrections of more than 17%, 12% and 8% at different points this year. ^[15]

Valuation remains rich:

Recent snapshots put Costco’s P/E ratio around 49–51, with a PEG ratio above 6 and a dividend yield of roughly 0.6%. ^[16]
DA Davidson pegs Costco at about 45x next‑twelve‑month earnings, calling the shares “premium‑valued” and maintaining a Neutral rating with a $1,000 price target based on 50x its 2026 EPS forecast. ^[17]

In other words, the business is performing like a growth stock, but the stock is already priced like one, which explains why even good news can be met with selling.

November 2025 sales: 8% growth, strong comps and a digital surge

Costco’s own November sales release, published December 3, sets the fundamental backdrop for today’s move. ^[18]

Headline numbers

For the four weeks ended November 30, 2025:

Net sales: $23.64 billion
Year‑over‑year growth: +8.1% (vs. $21.87 billion a year earlier) ^[19]

For the first quarter of fiscal 2026 (twelve weeks ended November 23, 2025):

Net sales: $65.98 billion
Year‑over‑year growth: +8.2% (vs. $60.99 billion last year) ^[20]

Including an earlier week (13 weeks):

Net sales: $71.97 billion, also up 8.2% year‑over‑year. ^[21]

Comparable sales and e‑commerce

Costco’s sales quality looks solid, not just the totals:

Total company comparable sales:
- 6.4% for the twelve‑week quarter
- 6.9% for the four‑week November period ^[22]
Regional comps: U.S., Canada and Other International all contributed positive mid‑single to low‑double‑digit gains. ^[23]
Digitally enabled sales: up about 20.5%, highlighting rapid e‑commerce momentum. ^[24]
Traffic & basket size: Barron’s reports global foot traffic up 3.8% and average transaction size up about 3%. ^[25]

Categories like food, candy, meats, bakery, jewelry, and health & beauty were called out as standout performers during November, benefiting from holiday‑season demand and Costco’s value proposition. ^[26]

On the surface, these are exactly the kind of numbers investors expect from Costco: steady high‑single‑digit top‑line growth with broad‑based strength and an accelerating online channel.

So why is Costco stock down today?

If the latest sales report looks this healthy, why is COST selling off?

Two main dynamics appear to be at work:

1. Expectations were already very high

The Motley Fool points out that Costco’s November and Q1 net sales growth (8.1% and 8.2%, respectively) are strong but not dramatically above what bullish investors had been pricing in. ^[27] When a stock is trading near 50x earnings, anything short of a substantial upside surprise can trigger profit‑taking.

A related note from TheStreet’s premium coverage argues that today’s share‑price decline reflects some investors misinterpreting the $65.98 billion Q1 sales figure relative to expectations, despite comps and e‑commerce beating many forecasts. ^[28]

2. Near‑term earnings “beat” odds look more balanced

A Zacks‑authored note (syndicated via Finviz) titled “Costco (COST) Earnings Expected to Grow: Should You Buy?”highlights that: ^[29]

Consensus expects Q1 EPS of $4.24, up about 11% year‑over‑year.
Consensus revenue is around $67.1 billion, roughly 8% growth.
The Zacks Earnings ESP (a measure of the likelihood of an earnings beat) is negative (~‑0.69%), and Costco currently carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).

In Zacks’ framework, that combination does not strongly point to an earnings beat, even though the underlying growth remains solid. That skepticism may be feeding into today’s selling pressure as traders position ahead of the December 11report. ^[30]

Put simply: Costco is still growing nicely, but expectations and valuation leave less room for “good but not spectacular” results.

Earnings outlook: what Wall Street expects from Costco now

Costco is scheduled to report Q1 FY2026 earnings after the close on Thursday, December 11, 2025. ^[31]

Short‑term (next quarter)

Across MarketBeat, Zacks and other tracking services, expectations cluster around: ^[32]

EPS: ~$4.24
Revenue: ~$67.0–$67.2 billion
Year‑over‑year growth: ≈ +11% EPS, +8% revenue

Last quarter, Costco delivered EPS of $5.87 vs. expectations of $5.81 and revenue of $86.16 billion, up 8.1%year‑over‑year — its 9th earnings beat in the last 10 quarters, according to MarketBeat. ^[33]

Medium‑term (this fiscal year and next)

StockAnalysis aggregates analyst forecasts and shows: ^[34]

FY2025 revenue: about $275.2 billion
FY2026 revenue: projected around $302.7 billion (+10%)
FY2027 revenue: projected around $325.6 billion (+7.6%)

On earnings:

EPS FY2025: ~$18.21
EPS FY2026: ~$20.48 (+12.5%)
EPS FY2027: ~$22.57 (+10.2%)

MarketBeat’s earnings summary is broadly consistent, expecting roughly $18 EPS this fiscal year and $20 next year, implying high‑single to low‑double‑digit annual EPS growth. ^[35]

In other words, Wall Street expects Costco to keep compounding earnings at around 10% a year, even in a choppy macro environment.

Analyst ratings and price targets: still mostly bullish

Despite the wobble in the share price and Zacks’ cautious near‑term view, the broader analyst community remains constructive on Costco stock.

Consensus ratings

Across several major aggregators:

MarketBeat:
- Consensus rating: “Moderate Buy”
- Roughly 32–35 analysts tracked; a mix of Buy and Hold, with no Sell ratings reported. ^[36]
StockAnalysis:
- 25 analysts, consensus rating: “Buy”. ^[37]
TipRanks:
- 24 analysts over the last three months: 16 Buy, 8 Hold, 0 Sell
- Average 12‑month price target: $1,091.61, implying about 18% upside from recent levels. ^[38]
Benzinga:
- 29 analysts, consensus price target around $1,064.71
- High target: $1,225 (Morgan Stanley, May 2025)
- Low target: $907 (Roth MKM). ^[39]

Key broker calls this week

Some of the most notable fresh opinions:

Telsey Advisory Group
- Rating: Outperform/Buy
- Price target: $1,100
- Reiterated December 1 and December 4. ^[40]
J.P. Morgan
- Rating: Buy
- Recently trimmed its price target from $1,050 to $1,025, still implying upside from current prices. ^[41]
DA Davidson
- Rating: Neutral
- Price target: $1,000, citing Costco’s premium valuation (~45x forward earnings) as a key constraint. ^[42]

Putting it together, most analysts still see mid‑teens to high‑teens upside over the next 12 months, but there’s a clear split between valuation‑sensitive firms (Neutral around $1,000) and growth‑oriented bulls (targets around $1,100–$1,225).

Membership fees: higher prices, loyal members and a younger base

A core pillar of the Costco investment case is its membership model, which delivers high‑margin, recurring revenueand tends to smooth out economic cycles.

Fee hikes that stuck

Costco raised its membership prices in late 2024:

U.S. individual memberships increased to $65 per year (from $60).
Executive memberships rose to $130 (from $120). ^[43]

Despite higher dues, membership growth stayed robust:

Individual members:
- 58.8 million (FY2023) → 63.7 million (FY2024) → 68.3 million (FY2025)
Business members:
- 12.2 million → 12.5 million → 12.7 million over the same period. ^[44]

The growth rate of total paid members has slowed modestly — from 7% to about 6% year‑over‑year — but remains healthy given the price hike. ^[45]

Membership fee revenue is surging

Analysts at Zacks and Nasdaq note that membership fee income jumped about 14% in fiscal 2025, driven by price increases, sign‑ups and upgrades. They expect fee revenue to rise another ~9% in fiscal 2026, following roughly 10% growth in 2025. ^[46]

There are a couple of nuances:

Renewal rates slipped slightly:
- Worldwide renewal dipped to about 89.8%, from 90.2% in the prior quarter.
- U.S./Canada renewal eased to about 92.3%, ~40 basis points lower sequentially. ^[47]
Management attributes this to a higher mix of online sign‑ups and promotional campaigns, including a large Groupon push, which tend to have somewhat lower initial renewal. ^[48]

In response, Costco is leaning harder into:

Auto‑renewal
Targeted digital communication
Sweeteners like extended warehouse hours and a $10 monthly Instacart credit for Executive members. ^[49]

Nasdaq’s coverage also highlights that younger shoppers now make up nearly half of new memberships, a positive sign for lifetime customer value. ^[50]

Taken together, the story is that membership price hikes are sticking, fee revenue is growing faster than sales, and renewal rates remain extremely high by industry standards, even if they’ve ticked down a bit from peak levels.

E‑commerce and physical expansion: Costco’s growth engines

Beyond the membership model, Costco is still growing both online and in brick‑and‑mortar.

As noted earlier, digitally enabled sales grew roughly 20.5% in the most recent quarter, a meaningful acceleration for a historically store‑centric retailer. ^[51]
Barron’s and TipRanks both emphasize that Costco’s e‑commerce pivot is gaining traction, even as in‑store traffic and basket sizes continue to rise. ^[52]

On the physical side, Costco continues to open warehouses globally:

A new 163,000‑square‑foot Costco warehouse in Guilderland, New York — the first in the state’s Capital Region — is expected to open in August 2026, after some construction and permitting delays. ^[53]

While individual stores don’t move the needle much for a company of Costco’s scale, they underscore that the store base is still expanding, particularly in under‑penetrated regions.

Tariff lawsuit against the Trump administration: a 2026 wild card

One of the most surprising headlines this week is that Costco is suing the Trump administration over tariffs.

What Costco is doing

Costco has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of International Trade seeking a refund of tariffs it paid under President Donald Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). ^[54]
The company argues that even if the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately rules Trump’s tariffs illegal, importers may not automatically receive refunds unless they have filed their own suits — hence Costco’s move to protect its rights before a December 15 deadline for refund claims. ^[55]

Al Jazeera and Kiplinger both note that Costco joins a list of other major companies challenging the tariffs, and that the Supreme Court’s ruling on the scope of IEEPA could have broad implications for presidential trade powers. ^[56]

Why it matters for Costco investors

If the tariffs are overturned and Costco secures refunds, that would be a one‑time cash tailwind and a potential boost to margins.
If tariffs persist, Costco — like many retailers — will either eat part of the cost in margins or continue passing them through to customers, which could complicate its value positioning.

So far, markets seem to be treating the lawsuit as a background risk/opportunity, not a primary driver of the share price, but it’s an important thread to watch heading into 2026.

Valuation debate: quality at too high a price?

Not everyone agrees Costco stock is attractive at today’s levels.

DCF and free‑cash‑flow views

Simply Wall St recently ran a discounted cash flow (DCF) analysis and concluded that: ^[57]

Costco’s latest free cash flow is about $8.16 billion.
Analysts expect FCF to climb to $10.71 billion by 2028 and $15.66 billion by 2035.
Its DCF model produces an intrinsic value of roughly $691 per share, implying that the stock is trading at about a 32% premium to fair value.

That tool gives Costco 0/6 on its valuation checks, and categorizes the stock as “overvalued” on that basis.

MarketBeat’s “turnaround in 2026?” angle

A fresh MarketBeat feature titled “Will 2026 Mark a Turnaround for Costco?” acknowledges that 2025 has been frustrating (just 1.34% YTD share‑price gains and several double‑digit pullbacks) but notes that Costco has beaten earnings in nine of the last ten quarters, has negligible short interest, and could see sentiment improve in 2026 if it continues to deliver steady growth. ^[58]

Their snapshot shows, as of late morning today: ^[59]

Price: ~$893, down about 3%
Dividend yield: ~0.6%
P/E: just under 50x
Consensus price target: about $1,027.75

In short, even some bullish analysts frame Costco as a great business at a demanding price: the long‑term case looks strong, but short‑term upside may depend on either exceptional execution or a broader re‑rating of defensive growth stocks.

Special dividend or stock split? The “crossroads” conversation

Costco has a history of occasional mega special dividends, and its now‑four‑digit‑adjacent share price naturally invites speculation about a stock split.

A Seeking Alpha piece describes Costco as being at a “crossroads,” with strong sales fueling talk of another special dividend or a long‑rumored stock split, even as the company navigates a tougher macro environment. ^[60]

There is no official announcement on either front as of December 4, 2025. But given:

The company’s huge cash‑generation capacity,
A dividend policy that’s historically shareholder‑friendly, and
A share price hovering near $900–$1,000,

many analysts expect some kind of capital‑return event is plausible over the next few years, especially if growth continues and leverage remains modest.

Is Costco stock a buy right now? The bull and bear cases

This article isn’t personal investment advice, but we can summarize the main arguments currently circulating among analysts and market commentators.

The bull case

Supporters of Costco stock in late 2025 generally point to:

Resilient, recurring revenue from membership fees that are still growing faster than sales, even after price hikes. ^[61]
High‑single‑digit sales growth, with strong comps and e‑commerce up ~20%, suggesting Costco is successfully adapting to shifting shopping habits. ^[62]
A long track record of earnings beats and high returns on equity (around 30%). ^[63]
A powerful brand and value proposition, which TheStreet and others argue has “cemented” member loyalty in 2025 despite macro headwinds. ^[64]
Consensus forecasts calling for ~10% annual EPS growth for the next several years, supporting the case for Costco as a defensive compounder. ^[65]

In this view, today’s dip is more about sentiment and short‑term expectations than fundamentals.

The bear (or cautious) case

Skeptics, or at least valuation‑sensitive investors, emphasize:

A near‑50x trailing P/E and rich PEG ratio, far above most retailers and the broader market. ^[66]
Simply Wall St’s DCF implying ~30% overvaluation even under optimistic FCF growth assumptions. ^[67]
Slightly softening renewal rates following fee hikes and aggressive promotions, which they worry could worsen if economic conditions deteriorate. ^[68]
Zacks’ Rank #4 (Sell) and negative Earnings ESP, which signal a less favorable setup for near‑term earnings surprises. ^[69]
Uncertain outcomes around Trump‑era tariffs and broader consumer‑spending trends heading into 2026. ^[70]

From this perspective, Costco remains a stellar business, but the stock may not be a bargain, and investors looking for a wide margin of safety may prefer to wait for a more substantial pullback or clearer macro visibility.

What to watch next

For anyone tracking Costco stock into year‑end, the key catalysts are:

Q1 FY2026 earnings on December 11
- Will EPS beat the $4.24 consensus?
- How fast are membership fees and renewal rates growing post‑hike?
- Are tariff costs and promotional activity pressuring margins?
Management commentary on tariffs and the lawsuit
- Any quantification of tariff exposure or potential refunds.
- Views on how the Supreme Court’s eventual decision could affect Costco.
Signals on capital returns
- Hints of a special dividend, higher regular dividend, or even a stock split, particularly if free cash flow stays strong.
2026 guidance and tone
- Whether Costco leans conservative or confident in its outlook for consumer demand, e‑commerce growth, and international expansion.

As of December 4, 2025, the consensus view is that Costco the business remains in excellent shape, while Costco the stock sits at a valuation that leaves less room for disappointment. Investors will be watching next week’s earnings very closely to see which side of that tension wins out.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice, investment recommendation, or an offer to buy or sell any security. Always do your own research or consult a qualified financial adviser before making investment decisions.

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