B.J.'s Wholesale Club Stock Is a Relative Bargain
BJ's Wholesale Club (NYSE: BJ) reported fiscal fourth-quarter 2019 earnings results on Thursday. Investors received the company's year-over-year top-line advance of 1.5% and fiscal 2020 net sales growth forecast of roughly 2% with enthusiasm, lifting shares by 5% in mid-afternoon trade.
Over a wider time frame, however, shareholders have been less sanguine: BJ's stock has declined by 12% during the last 12 months, leaving it at $22.50, which is in the ballpark of its June 2018 IPO pricing of $17 per share.
It's no chore to grasp the market's skepticism, as BJ's lives under constant comparison to warehouse club juggernaut Costco (NASDAQ: COST). At $155 billion in trailing-12-month revenue, Costco's top line is roughly 12 times that of BJ's $13 billion in annual revenue. Yet in its fiscal 2019 year, Costco expanded revenue and comparable-club sales (excluding gasoline) by 7.8% and 6.1%, respectively, while BJ's grew its own fiscal 2019 revenue by just 1.4% and increased comparable-club sales by a meager 1.3%.
Source Fool.com
