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I have a theory about Costco. When the economy gets confusing, when tariffs are rising, inflation is creeping back, and nobody is quite sure what happens next, people don't stop spending.
They just get smarter about where they spend.
Costco (COST) is where smart spending goes.
That theory got fresh support this week. April sales data showed total net sales of $23.92 billion for the four weeks ended May 3, 2026, up 13% year over year, according to Costco’s monthly sales release.
Bank of America reviewed the numbers in a note shared with TheStreet and maintained its Buy rating with a $1,185 price target, implying meaningful upside from the current price around $1,012.
"Costco's comp consistency continues to shine during this ongoing period of macro uncertainty and volatility," BofA said in the note.
That consistency is the whole story. COST is up 17.77% year-to-date against the S&P 500's 8.11% gain, according to Yahoo Finance.
The April comparable sales number requires one adjustment before it tells the full story. Easter fell one shopping day earlier this year, inflating the reported figure.
Stripping that out, BofA calculated the adjusted U.S. comparable sales figure at 6.3%, according to the note shared with me at TheStreet.
That is a deceleration from March's 7.7%, but BofA flagged that the two-year stacked comparison actually improved. In other words, Costco is growing faster on a sustained basis than the single-month number suggests.
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Traffic was roughly stable month over month when adjusting for Easter. Ticket growth decelerated to 3.4% from 4.6% in March, though March benefited from consumers stocking up ahead of the holiday.
The strongest U.S. regions in April were the Midwest, Southeast, and Northeast, according to BofA.
The digital channel continues to outrun the physical business. Digital sales grew 18.4% in April, according to the note - a continuation of the acceleration that produced 22.6% growth in the second quarter.
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Costco has deployed personalized recommendation technology that drove over $470 million in e-commerce sales in Q2 alone, according to the company's March earnings call compiled by TipRanks.
My read of that trajectory is that Costco's digital business is becoming a genuine growth engine rather than just a supplement to the warehouse experience.
One number in the April data deserves context — gas. The gas business was up in the low 40s in April, driven by both higher prices and accelerating volume growth, according to BofA. The average worldwide selling price per gallon increased 26.7% year over year. Gas price inflation added 320 basis points to total comparable sales, a meaningful artificial lift.
Strip out gas and foreign exchange, and the total company comparable was 7.8% in April, according to BofA. That is the real number. And it is solid.
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The Iran war-driven energy price spike is, counterintuitively, a short-term tailwind for Costco's reported comps even as it creates cost pressure elsewhere in the economy. When gas prices fall, and BofA's baseline assumes they eventually will, that 320 basis point tailwind disappears.
The comparison gets tougher. But Costco's underlying traffic and ticket trends suggest the membership model holds regardless of where oil prices go.
Before looking at what's ahead, it is worth grounding the April data in what Costco has already delivered this fiscal year.
Net sales of $68.24 billion, up 9.1% year over year
Net income of $2.035 billion, up nearly 14% year over year
Total paid members of 82.1 million, up 4.8% year over year
U.S. and Canada membership renewal rate of 92.1%
Membership fee income up 13.6% year over year to $1.355 billion Source: Costco Second-Quarter 2026 Results
That renewal rate is the number I keep coming back to. At 92.1%, Costco retains almost every member it earns. That is a business with genuine pricing power and genuine loyalty, or the combination that allows it to keep growing even when consumer wallets are under pressure.
Costco currently operates 928 warehouses globally and is targeting 30 or more new openings annually going forward, according to the April report. Q3 2026 earnings are expected on May 28.
BofA's $1,185 price target implies roughly roughly 17% upside from current levels. At a time when defensive growth is scarce, that combination of consistency, loyalty, and digital acceleration is exactly what the market is willing to pay for.
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This story was originally published by TheStreet on May 9, 2026, where it first appeared in the Investing section. Add TheStreet as a Preferred Source by clicking here.