NEW YORK, Jan 3, 2026, 11:09 ET — Market closed
- Costco shares closed Friday down 0.9% at $854.50 after sliding as low as $852.59.
- Telsey’s Joseph Feldman kept an Outperform rating and forecast December comparable sales growth of 2.2%.
- Investors are focused on Costco’s December sales update due Jan. 7 and key U.S. data that can sway rate expectations.
Costco Wholesale Corp shares (COST.O) ended Friday down 0.9% at $854.50, ahead of the warehouse retailer’s closely watched December sales update next week. The stock traded between $852.59 and $865.23 in the session.
The January sales print matters because Costco reports monthly comparable sales — revenue at stores open at least a year — between quarterly earnings, giving investors a quicker read on demand after the holiday season. Those updates can reset expectations early in the year, especially when gas prices and currency moves distort headline growth.
Costco also reports “comps” excluding gasoline and foreign exchange, a stripped-down view of underlying merchandise demand. Traders tend to focus on that figure because fuel and currency swings can make the headline number look stronger or weaker without changing what shoppers bought in-store. Benzinga
Telsey Advisory Group analyst Joseph Feldman reiterated an Outperform rating and a $1,100 price target and forecast December comparable sales growth of 2.2%, down from 7.4% a year earlier, according to Benzinga. “Gas prices declined in December, which should create an estimated comp headwind of ~20 bps,” Feldman wrote; a basis point is one-hundredth of a percentage point. Benzinga
Feldman estimated core merchandise comps — excluding gas and foreign exchange — at 2.0%, with U.S. comps excluding gas at 1.0%, Benzinga reported. The same note said a weaker U.S. dollar could provide a tailwind versus the drag from lower fuel prices.
In a separate recap of the note, Investing.com said Telsey expects digital sales growth of about 5.0% for the month, a sharp slowdown from the prior-year period. The same report repeated Feldman’s $1,100 target and Outperform call going into the sales release.
Costco is scheduled to publish December sales results on Jan. 7 at 1:15 p.m. PT (4:15 p.m. ET), according to its investor relations calendar.
The next company events on the calendar include Costco’s annual shareholders meeting on Jan. 15 and its fiscal second-quarter earnings call on March 5, filings and company materials show.
Costco last reported first-quarter fiscal 2026 net sales of $65.98 billion, up 8.2% from a year earlier, and profit of $4.50 per share. Membership fees rose to $1.329 billion, the company said at the time.
Warehouse-club peers such as Walmart’s Sam’s Club and BJ’s Wholesale Club compete for the same value-focused shopper, leaving markets sensitive to any signal that traffic or discretionary categories are cooling. A softer Costco print can ripple across the broader big-box retail group, even without company-specific news elsewhere.
Before the next session on Monday, chart watchers will be looking at the $850 area after Friday’s dip, with near-term resistance around the mid-$860s after the session high. A break in either direction can amplify moves as investors position into next week’s sales release.
The macro backdrop is also in focus: U.S. employment data for December 2025 are due Jan. 9, followed by the December CPI report on Jan. 13, according to the Labor Department’s published release schedule. Rate-sensitive consumer names can react sharply to either print.
Further out, the Federal Reserve’s next policy meeting is scheduled for Jan. 27–28. Investors will watch that decision and guidance for clues on the path of interest rates, which can influence spending trends and how much of Costco’s premium valuation the market is willing to pay.
For Costco specifically, traders say the next move hinges on whether the January sales report shows stable traffic and a healthy “core” sales trend once gasoline and currency noise is stripped out — and whether online growth is re-accelerating heading into the March earnings call.
