Costco Earnings, Revenue Beat in Q2; Virus Stockpiling Boost Seen

Investing.com – Costco (NASDAQ:) topped fiscal second-quarter earnings and sales expectations Thursday and said it saw a late boost in sales due to customers buying extra goods in preparation any impact to daily life the novel coronavirus might have.

Shares gained 0.8% in after-hours trading.

Costco announced per share of $2.1 on revenue of $39.07 billion. Analysts polled by Investing.com anticipated EPS of $2.07 on revenue of $38.23 billion. That compared to EPS of $2.01 on revenue of $35.4 billion in the same period a year before.

Comparable sales, adjusted for a late Thanksgiving, rose 7.9% overall for the quarter. U.S. comparable sales rose 8.1%.

“February sales benefited from an uptick in consumer demand in the fourth week of the reporting period,” the company said. “We attribute this to concerns over the (c)oronavirus and estimate the positive impact on total and comparable sales to be approximately three percent.”

Analysts are expecting EPS of $2 and revenue of $37.32 billion in the current quarter.

Costco shares are up 7.37% from the beginning of the year , still down 2.98% from its 52 week high of $325.26 set on February 21. They are outperforming the Nasdaq which is down 3.33% year to date.

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