Costco Wholesale missed earnings estimates late Thursday to round out a week of choppy results for discount retail stores. Casey's General Stores was mixed on analyst forecasts Tuesday afternoon. And Ollie's Bargain Outlet missed views Wednesday morning. Costco shares fell slightly Friday morning.
The latest round of retail store reports come after Five Below, Dollar General and Big Lots provided mixed performance updates last week.
Costco Stock Results
Costco Wholesale announced its fiscal first-quarter results Thursday after the market close. The wholesaler has reported steady positive earnings and revenue growth going all the way back to Q1 2018.
However, the company's sales growth has slowed in recent months. Costco reported $19.17 billion in sales for November, up 5.7% year over year. That's lower than the 7.7% increase reported in October and 10.1% growth announced in September. And e-commerce sales fell 10.1% from October to November.
Expectations: Wall Street predicted the wholesaler's earnings would climb 5% to $3.12 per share. And sales were seen growing 16% to $58.36 billion, according to the FactSet consensus. Lower Sharp consensus estimates had revenue growing 9% to $54.86 billion.
Results: Costco's earnings rose 3% to $3.07 per share on 8% revenue growth to $53.44 billion.
Same store sales rose 6.6% year-over-year but e-commerce sales fell 3.7% for the period.
COST stock dipped 0.3% in Fridauy's premarket action, following the report. Shares ended Thursday down about 3% so far this week.
Casey's General Stores
Casey's General Stores has shown two quarters of decelerating earnings growth, slowing to a still healthy 28% increase in Q1, ended in July. Meanwhile, sales averaged 44% gains for the past six quarters.
Expectations: Analysts predicted the gasoline and retail store chain's earnings growth to slow to 22%, or $3.16 per share, on a 23% increase in revenue to $4.03 billion.
Results: Casey's earnings growth picked back up with a robust 42% increase to $3.67 per share. And revenue jumped 22% to $$3.98 billion, but fell just short of expectations.
Casey's inside sales led the results, increasing 11.4% to $1.27 billion for the quarter. The total fuel sold increased 5% to 702 million gallons due to an increase in store count. And total fuel profit rose 22.7% to $284.4 million. The chain added 11 new stores during the period, bringing the total to 2,463 locations.
For its 2023 fiscal year, Casey's plans to add 80 stores with 5% to 7% same-store inside sales growth. But the company did not provide an earnings or revenue outlook. FactSet forecasts Casey's earnings to grow 13.5% to $10.33 per share for the year. And revenue is seen jumping 22% to $15.84 billion.
CASY stock's relative strength line is a new high for the year. It has an RS rating of 95 out of 99, indicating strong performance against its peers in the stock market. Shares broke out from its six-week cup base in late October. But the advance has slowed as shares lost their 21-day exponential moving average and 10-week moving average at the beginning of December.
CASY stock traded flat early Friday after edging up slightly during Thursday's session. Shares jumped 7.4% to 246.95 on Wednesday. The stock is trading near 52-week highs and 10% above a 224 buy point following an October breakout.
OLLI Earnings
Ollie's Bargain Outlet missed analysts' earnings target, but snapped its streak of five quarters of declining earnings in its Wednesday morning report. For the July-ending period, Ollie's earnings toppled 58% and revenue climbed 9%, after four quarters of declining sales.
Expectations: Analysts predicted Ollie's earnings would jump 17% to 40 cents per share. The discount retail store chain's revenue was seen rising 12% to $429 million.
Results: Ollie's earnings rose 8.8% to 37 cents per share while revenue increased 9.2% to $418.1 million.
Comparable store sales rose 1.9% due to the opening of new locations. However, selling, general and administrative expenses jumped 9.4% from the higher selling costs and number of stores. Inventories expanded 11% to $523.7 million.
For its upcoming fourth quarter, Ollie's expects earnings between 78 cents and 83 cents per share on $540 million to $550 million in sales. The FactSet consensus sees Q4 earnings at 94 cents per share on $563 million in revenue.
For fiscal 2022, the company expects earnings to range from $1.57 to $1.62 per share on $1.817 billion to $1.827 billion in revenue. Meanwhile, Wall Street expects earnings of $1.76 per share for the year on $1.851 billion of revenue.
OLLI stock bounced more than 9% on Thursday after it dropped 17.5% Wednesday following the results. OLLI stock is below levels of critical support, moving down down right side of a four-month base pattern. Shares gained 0.5% early Friday.
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