Issaquah, Washington-based Costco Wholesale Corporation (COST) operates a chain of membership-only big-box warehouse club retail stores. With a market cap of $451.6 billion, Costco operates through its outlets spread across North America, Asia, and Europe, and an e-commerce website.

Companies worth $200 billion or more are generally described as "mega-cap stocks." Costco fits right into that category, with its market cap exceeding this threshold, reflecting its substantial size, influence, and dominance in the discount retail industry.

Costco stock touched its all-time high of $1,078.23 on Feb. 13 and is currently trading 6% below that peak. COST stock has dipped nearly 3.4% over the past three months, performing slightly better than the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s ($DOWI) 4% decline during the same time frame.

Costco’s performance has remained much more impressive over the longer time frame. COST stock has soared 24.6% over the past 52 weeks and 10.6% on a YTD basis, outpacing Dow’s 8.4% gains over the past year and 1.1% dip in 2025.

To confirm the bullish trend, Costco has traded mostly above its 200-day moving average over the past year with some fluctuations and consistently above its 50-day moving average since late April.

Costco’s stock prices dropped 6.1% in the trading session after the release of its mixed Q2 results on Mar. 6. Driven by solid performance across geographies and robust growth in comps, Costco’s revenues for the quarter surged more than 9% year-over-year to $62.5 billion, surpassing the Street’s expectations by 79 basis points. However, the company failed to completely translate the topline surge into bottom-line gains. Its net income for the quarter increased by a modest 2.6% year-over-year to $1.8 billion. Meanwhile, its earnings of $4.02 per share missed the consensus estimates by 7 cents, unsettling investor confidence.

Despite its solid performance on Wall Street, Costco has underperformed the industry leader, Walmart Inc.’s (WMT) 49.5% surge over the past 52 weeks, but outpaced WMT’s 7.6% gains in 2025.

Analysts remain optimistic about the stock’s prospects. Among the 34 analysts covering the COST stock, the consensus rating is a “Moderate Buy.” As of writing, Costco’s mean price target of $1,065.91 represents a modest 5.2% upside potential. While the Street-high target of $1,205 suggests a notable 18.9% premium to current price levels.