Piper Jaffray Bullish On Costco Wholesale

Piper Jaffray maintains their “Overweight” rating for Costco Wholesale Corporation (NASDAQ: COST) as COST faces easing gas, foreign exchange and gross margin comparisons in the Q2-Q4. It also maintained previous price target of $67, a premium of over 11% over Friday’s closing price of $60.03.

The Firm maintaining their October comp estimate of +10% vs. consensus mean of +8%.

On the valuation front Analysts at Piper Jaffray said “We continue to believe COST will see outsized revenue and EPS growth in F10 as many of the headwinds from F09 turn into tailwinds. We are currently estimating F10 EPS of $2.98 (vs. consensus of $2.86), which equates to y/y EPS growth of 16% -- the best EPS growth for COST in 6 years. Our $67 price target is based on 22x our C10 EPS estimate of $3.05.”

So far this year, Shares of COST have already gained over 14%.