Costco Wholesale ( COST ) beat consensus on first quarter of fiscal 2018 results, and the stock jumped 2.34% in after-hours trading Thursday.
Costco posted diluted EPS of $1.36 and beat expectations by 2 cents. The EPS excludes stock-based compensation tax benefits of 9 cents. The beat produced a positive surprise of 1.5%.
For the quarter, Costco reported revenue of $31.8 billion, a 13.2% increase year over year and beat expectations by $370 million.
The chart below shows Costco's total revenue over the last six quarters:
In the first quarter of fiscal 2018, the U.S. wholesale hypermarket chain company reported a 10.5% year-over-year jump in comparable sales including the item of gas, inflation and foreign exchange. When the latter item is excluded, the jump is of only 7.9% year over year.
In the U.S., comparable sales including gas, inflation and foreign exchange, were up 10.3%, while those excluding gas, inflation and foreign exchange, were up 8.7%.
Membership revenue, which was approximately 2.2% of total revenue, increased by 9.5% to $692 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2018.
Costco closed the quarter with total assets and liabilities valued at $39.378 billion and $28.022 billion. As of Nov. 26, 2017, total current assets were valued at $19.897 billion while total current liabilities were valued at $20.360, for a current ratio of 0.98 versus an industry average of 0.99. The company had long-term debt of $6.478 billion, while the total equity was worth $11.356 billion. The long-term debt to equity ratio was therefore 57%. As of the first quarter of fiscal 2018, Costco had approximately $6.885 billion in cash on hand and securities.
Costco Wholesale Corp. is currently trading at $186.53 per share on the Nasdaq stock exchange. The stock gained 19.51% so far this year and outperformed the S&P 500 index by 2.05%:
Source: Yahoo Finance
Costco has a forward annual dividend of $2 per ordinary share for a forward yield of 1.06%.
Disclosure: No positions in Costco Wholesale.
This article first appeared on GuruFocus .
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
