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Non-Tech : Costco, slow but sure? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bill Wexler who wrote (726)	9/25/1998 10:52:00 PM
From: Bill Wexler	Respond to of 1147

When is a multiple "too high" for a category killer? An interesting post from the Dell thread on Silicon Investor. September, 1996 Message 293740 What do you think this guys reaction would have been if you told him that Dell's business model would propel the stock to $1056 a share (when backing out the splits) in 2 years?

To: Bill Wexler who wrote (726)	9/25/1998 11:10:00 PM
From: ted birnbaum	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1147

but do they have a web site ;)

To: Bill Wexler who wrote (726)	9/26/1998 2:01:00 PM
From: Zakrosian	Respond to of 1147

Bill - Thanks for an excellent overview of why Costco is a great long term investment. However, I think you might be overlooking the fact that a lot of folks playing the stock market (myself included) are also short term traders. Consequently, we look at the prospects for the stock over the next couple quarters rather than the next 5 years. As an example, I first bought COST a couple years ago around 16 after I went in to buy one of their great pies and almost picked up a chainsaw while I was there. I had no doubt that this was a company with a tremendous potential for growth and owning the stock made looking for a parking spot and standing in line for 20 minutes to spend yet another $100 a pleasure. Now the stock is trading at about 25 times earnings and it seems fairly valued, though I have no doubt that in 3 years it will reach 100 a share. But for a portion of my portfolio, I ask myself the question: which scenario is more likely - that COST will hit 100 over the next 6 months or that PIR will hit 16 (at which point it will be trading at about 20x earnings)? Because I think the latter is more likely, I've sold 2/3 of my COST to buy PIR, and if I'm right, I'll reverse the process sometime next year. Again, I couldn't agree more with you about the company. Where I live there is a BJ's within a mile of the Costco. About 90% of my friends who shop either go to Costco and those who go to BJ's do so primarily because it's not as crowded. Like you say, COST is a no-brainer from a long term perspective.

To: Bill Wexler who wrote (726)	1/29/1999 6:50:00 PM
From: Bill Wexler	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1147

Another record high for Costco (COST). I'm slapping my head in disbelief...it must be my dumb luck. Silly me, I keep clinging to that old fashioned notion that buying an exceptionally well-managed retailer that can produce $100,000,000 in sales per location, has a near-fanatical customer base willing to pay yearly annual dues for the privilege of shopping there, and gets newspaper articles written about the traffic jams that appear when new stores open is probably a good bet. Interesting to note that COST will blast through $20 Billion in annual revenue, over 1/2 Billion in profits, has 1/2 Billion in the bank, minuscule debt, and a spectacular return on invested capital. Current market cap for Costco: $18 Billion Current market cap for money-losing book peddler Amazon: $19 Billion P.S. Yes...there is a Costco.com...and I can assure you that it isn't losing money.