Costco Executive Summary

Costco is currently in a period of expansion. The company is opening many new stores throughout the world, as well as expanding their online marketplace. Due to this increase in expansion, Costco has also seen an increase in debt as a direct correlation to this expansion. This has caused certain key ratios, such as the debt to equity ratio to increase over the past few years. This could make it appear as if the company is under poor management, or has not been making enough money, and covering its expenses less and less, but this is not the case with Costco. Costco is financially stable even with its new loans for expansion. While they do have a slightly higher than average current ratio for the industry, they can still pay off their

This creates a wide margin for their inventory turnover. Compared to others in their industry Costco is on par, but inventory turnover, and similar ratios would be difficult to take into consideration when purchasing the stock, because of the variability of the goods. Since Costco’s inventory has had a small, but steady increase over the past few years though, that is a good sign to purchase stock. This also contributes to Costco’s liquidity. Much of Costco’s assets are either in their warehouses or in their inventory. The warehouses make the company not very liquid, as it is challenging to sell a warehouse. Going back to the highly varied inventory, this is also a factor, some goods may be sold very quickly, while others may remain on shelves for weeks, sometimes months. Costco does try to combat this with more seasonal goods, but this is not the case with goods such as large appliances. They are growing more efficient though, and the company's ROA is growing each year. While Costco does have a good profitability in some ratios and aspects it does not in others. Costco has a lower return on assets than others in its industry, so they make slightly less money than their competitors based on how much they sell, but they have a lower asset