Costco Stock Analysis

Costco Wholesale Corporation is the U.S. public corporation that I chose to do my Accounting 2 project on.

Earlier in his career, Jim was a controversial figure among investors and financial analysts on Wall Street. They blamed Jim for being too generous towards Costco’s employees and not bringing immediate profit to the shareholders1. But after weathering the recession and retaining a return rate of over 10 percent, Jim Sinegal is now revered on Wall Street. His ideology of building a long-lasting company has been successful. Additionally, during the recession, unlike other CEO’s, Jim implemented policies that prevented lay-offs and, in the process, managed to keep Costco’s balance statement in the black. He used strategies such as establishing a strong identity for their private-label offerings. For example, after the economic meltdown, Kirkland Signatures (Costco’s private label) was able to provide customers with a low cost alternative while maintaining the quality they were accustomed to.

He answered, “Costco buys everything in bulk, meaning they can sell things in bulk and for a cheaper price. When feeding a hundred people twice a week, and being a church with no steady income, Costco would be an amazing resource to have here in town. We could buy more food for a cheaper price, for more people.” Another huge point Mr.Tevis made in the interview was that Costco could bring business, happiness, competition, and publicity to the Longview/Kelso area. I asked how and he replied, “Costco is a huge corporation with hundreds of employees. Having a Costco here would bring jobs, jobs, and more jobs. Having a job makes people happy and Costco employees are always happy. People here would be happier because of that. And not only would Costco have jobs and give jobs, but other companies would want to compete with Costco and those companies would provide jobs. Take Tumwater for example,” he continues “that Costco was built there and Tumwater got a lot more popular. Businesses want to be where other business are.”. Being a business owner, Mr.Tevis knows that businesses often compete with other businesses

The stock I chose was Macy’s Inc., since during the month of July they were doing great and each stock was worth $24.20, highest it’s been for the past 3 months. While having to look at the changes on the stock for almost a month, I noticed that the price per stock was lowered each day after I chose to “buy” part of the stocks. The lows aren’t too low while the highs were always above 1%.

As a manager of an individual Costco store, I would need much different information than an outside investor who is considering lending money to the company or investing in stock. The investor would be looking for general data that would give him an idea of how Costco is faring within the industry (Edmonds, Olds, & Tsay, 2008). The investor would be desiring financial accounting data. As a manager of a Costco store, I would be desiring managerial accounting data. I would only be interested in the specific data that pertains to the store that I manage. The investor would be interested in data that concerns Costco as a company. Other stores could be performing at a higher level than my individual store and lessen the impact of my store to the

It is important for stockholders to continuously re-evaluate their investments. Although some investors do this more frequently and thoroughly than others, the majority of shareholders do so at least once each year. Therefore, Torres’ desire to update her analysis in order to determine whether Costco was still operating efficiently makes perfect sense. After thorough examination, my analysis proves that Costco remains one of the industry’s leading competitors and there seems to be no reason for Torres to sell her shares as long as she wishes to retain holdings of a

A Costco’s manager needs to know different information from the investor for the mere fact that the manager has to plan, direct, and control the entire organization (Edmonds, Olds & Tsay, 2008). The executive is aware of the company’s external affairs but mainly focuses on the information that affects the business internally. The manager deals with issues that pertain to the finances of the firm as well as making sure to disseminate information to employees at all levels. Managers are the heartbeat of the enterprise. Managers are responsible for informing the employees about nonfinancial information such as work schedules, store hours, and customer service policies (Edmonds, Olds & Tsay, 2008).

According to Deloitte’s 2014 Global Powers of Retailing Report, it identifies the 250 largest retailers around the world based on publicly available data for fiscal 2012 encompassing companies’ fiscal years ended through to June 2013; however, here mainly focuses on the Top 10 retailers’ analysis.

Torres’ common-size financial statements also show the changing composition of Costco’s financing structure over time. The fact that interest expense consistently fell over the five year span from -0.35% of net sales in 1997 to -0.09% in 2001 demonstrates Costco’s ability to reduce its overall amount of debt during these years. Exhibit nine’s balance sheet portion supports this reduction, documenting an increase in total current liabilities from 35.86% of total assets in 1997 to 40.76% in 2001 and an increase in accounts payable from 25.46% of assets in 1997 to 27.03% in 2001. This signifies that the company’s debts or obligations due within one year increased, further corresponding with the fact that short-term borrowing increased from 0.46% of assets in 1997 to 1.93% in 2001. With an increase in short-term borrowing it is logical to expect to see a decrease in long-term borrowing. The income statement proves that this is indeed the case, documenting a decrease in long-term debt from 16.74% of sales in 1997 to 8.52% in 2001. This relates back to the decrease in Costco’s interest expense on the income statement, representing the company’s decision to switch to short-term and away from long-term methods. Furthermore, the decrease in long-term debt helped account for a decrease in total liabilities from

This is a strong performance from Costco in a discount store industry considering challenging market environment and strong competition. In the last thirty-one weeks, it generated net sales of $72.82 billion, reflecting an increase of 6% from $68.96 billion in a year ago period.

The stock that I have analyzed is Apple (AAPPL), which it falls under the technology sector and trades under the NASDAQ. This sector holds the biggest companies around the world. A lot of these companies are well known such as: Amazon, Google, LinkedIn, and etc. The technology sector is an undeniably investment opportunity for every investor around the world. Lets face it technology keeps improving and we have only seen the beginning of it. These companies, such as Apple, are associated with constant innovation and invention. Our modern economy relies upon the technology sector to improve quality, productivity, and profitability.

Information gathered from Costco’s balance sheet show that it has steadily grew a larger cash reserve. It has a higher rate of outstanding receivables and has sharply increased the rate of inventory kept in stock from 16% in 1997 to 27% in 2001. Another interesting fact to notice is the high increase in property, plants, and equipment increase in proportion to assets, from 31% in 1997 to 58% in 2001. Costco has a much higher ratio of accounts payable in 2001 compared to 1997, which can be explained by the many investments and purchases of property, land, and plans. The amount of short-term liabilities to assets has more than doubled, from 20% to 41%. This may be a troublesome trend if it continues since they

Costco has had steady growth in sales and earnings going as far back as 1995 as shown in Costco’s financial reports published on their corporate website. Also, Costco’s stock had substantial growth between 1995 and 200 and has shown steady growth trends since them (Yahoo Finance, 2013). Their member renewal rate was approximately 89.7% in the U.S. and Canada, and approximately 86.4% on a worldwide basis in 2012, consistent with recent years (Costco, 2012, p. 11). Costco’s strong financial performance, stock price trends, and customer retention are all indicators that their strategy is in line with their visions and objectives.

Over the past semester in Economics I have invested in and monitored the stock market. I learned how investing in certain companies can be risky and proper research about the companies are detrimental before buying stocks. Three stocks that have influenced most of my financial earnings and losses include Twitter, Amazon, and Pepsi.

The company that I am writing about is Starbucks, the international coffee shop chain. The company's financial statements for this analysis are from the FY2011 Annual Report and 10-K. The company has 10787 stores in the United States, of which 38% are franchised and the remainder are company-owned. The franchise model is more common when the company operates internationally. There are 6216 Starbucks stores internationally and of these 63% are franchises, with just 37% company-owned. The franchise model for international expansion has been utilized to help Starbucks expand quickly in foreign countries and to mitigate foreign political risk and to ensure that the product/service offering is tailored to local tastes (Thompson, 2012). The company is now in the process of buying back some overseas franchise stores in order to retain more profits for itself (Franchise Press, 2011). This paper will take a look at the company's most recent annual report to analyze the financial statements.