Costco Wholesale (NASDAQ:COST) is scheduled to announce earnings Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025. The company has a market capitalization of $394 billion. Revenue over the past 12 months reached $275 billion, with operating profit of $10 billion and net income of $8.1 billion. Although much will depend on how the results compare with consensus expectations, grasping historical patterns might tip the scales in your favor if you engage in event-driven trading. Separately, check out Will Broadcom Stock Beat Earnings Again?
There are two approaches to achieve that: familiarize yourself with the historical odds and position yourself ahead of the earnings announcement, or observe the relationship between immediate and medium-term returns following earnings and suggest your positioning after the results are disclosed.
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Costco Wholesale’s Historical Odds Of Positive Post-Earnings Return
Here are some insights regarding one-day (1D) post-earnings returns:
- Over the past five years, 19 earnings data points have been recorded, yielding 12 positive and 7 negative one-day (1D) returns. In summary, positive 1D returns were observed approximately 63% of the time.
- However, this rate drops to 55% when we examine data from the last 3 years instead of 5.
- The median of the 12 positive returns = 2.4%, while the median of the 7 negative returns = -2.4%
Further information regarding observed 5-Day (5D) and 21-Day (21D) returns post earnings is consolidated with the statistics in the table below.
Correlation Between 1D, 5D, And 21D Historical Returns
A comparatively low-risk strategy (albeit not useful if the correlation is minimal) involves understanding the correlation between short-term and medium-term returns post earnings, identifying the pair that exhibits the strongest correlation, and executing the appropriate trade. For instance, if 1D and 5D indicate the strongest correlation, a trader can take a “long” position for the subsequent 5 days if the 1D post-earnings return is positive. Here is some correlation data derived from both a 5-year and a more recent 3-year history. Please note that the correlation 1D_5D denotes the relationship between 1D post-earnings returns and subsequent 5D returns.
Is There Any Correlation With Peer Earnings?
At times, the performance of peers can impact post-earnings stock reactions. Indeed, the pricing mechanism may commence before the earnings announcements. Here is historical data regarding the post-earnings performance of Costco Wholesale stock compared to the stock performance of peers reporting earnings just prior to Costco Wholesale. For a fair comparison, peer stock returns also depict post-earnings one-day (1D) returns.
* N/A indicates that the peer reported earnings after COST
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