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Costco COST

equity

Price History

$6.44$353.83$701.22$1,049
1986-07 · DCA start$10.06

Time underwater

How far below its previous all-time high the price sat, each month. 0% means a new high.

-59.4%-39.6%-19.8%0.0%
1986-072026-08 · -9.4%

Worst drawdown: −59%, peaking Aug 1991 and bottoming Dec 1994 — 69 months below the prior high before recovering.

DCA Backtest

Invested
$48,200
Value today
$1,792,725
Return
+3619.3%
Months invested
482

Scenarios

Inflation — the same contributions merely keeping pace with CPI would be $85,371 today, so the real (inflation-adjusted) return is +1999.9%.

Lump sum instead — $48,200 all at once in Jul 1986: $4,548,547 (+9336.8%) — lump sum came out ahead.

Worst timing — same monthly amount started at the all-time high (Feb 2025): $1,881 on $1,900 invested (-1.0%).

⚠ Price returns only — dividends are not included. This understates the true return of dividend-paying shares, and any comparison against crypto (which pays no dividends) is biased against equities by roughly the dividend yield, compounded.

If this saved you a spreadsheet — buy me a coffee.

Every start month at once

Each cell is the return-to-date of £/$/€100-a-month DCA started that month. Click a cell to load it in the backtest above. The ringed cell is the all-time-high start — the worst timing scenario.

JFMAMJJASOND
1986
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Legend:−50%−20%0%+50%+200%+1000%worst timing (ATH)Selected 1986-07: +3619.3%

About Costco

Costco Wholesale Corporation is an American multinational corporation that operates a chain of membership-only big-box warehouse club retail stores. As of 2025, Costco is the third-largest retailer in the world, and as of August 2024, the world's largest retailer of beef, poultry, organic produce, and wine, with just under a third of American consumers regularly shopping at Costco warehouses. As of 2026, Costco is ranked 12th on the Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue, and is also ranked as the largest grocery retailer in Canada. (Wikipedia)

It's a listed company categorised under consumer staples and consumer staples merchandise retail, with a market cap of about $421.1B.

It rates Low Risk at 1.5/5, meaning the rated factors look benign — steady pricing, deep liquidity, and no obvious structural red flags.

Scoring well: earnings quality at 1.0/5.

Not yet researched: concentration, governance. These are excluded from the score rather than guessed, so the real risk may be higher than what’s shown.

Ratings summarise sourced facts against fixed rules — not investment advice, and no substitute for your own diligence.

Risk Profile

Low Risk(1.5/5)80% rated

How these ratings work

Market / Volatility2.3/5 · weight 20%
  • Annualised volatility (3yr)2/519.1
  • Max drawdown from ATH3/559.4
  • Beta vs S&P 5002/50.78
Liquidity1.0/5 · weight 15%
  • Avg daily $ volume1/52.3bn
  • Float % of shares outstandingnot yet researched
Leverage / Financial1.0/5 · weight 20%
  • Debt / equity1/50.17
  • Interest coverage (EBIT / interest)1/567.4
Earnings Quality1.0/5 · weight 15%
  • 3yr EPS volatility1/54.9
Concentrationunrated · weight 10%
  • Largest customer, % of revenuenot yet researched
  • Geographic revenue concentrationnot yet researched
Governanceunrated · weight 10%
  • Board independence %not yet researched
  • Share structurenot yet researched
  • Litigation / audit historynot yet researched
Sector / Regulatory2.0/5 · weight 10%
  • Sector regulatory exposure2/5moderate

Linked Assets

Same sector, or return-correlated — worth knowing what else might move if this one does.