I've held COST for years and every time I consider trimming, a quarter like this reminds me why I don't.

Q3 FY2026: net sales USD 69.15 billion, up 11.6%. Comparable sales up 9.8%, or 6.6% excluding gas and FX. E-commerce comparable sales up 21.5%. EPS hit $4.93, up from $4.28 a year ago. Every core metric moved in the right direction.

The number I pay closest attention to in any Costco quarter is membership renewal. US and Canada came in at 92.2%. Worldwide: 89.7%. 148.5 million total cardholders. These are not one-time shoppers. They're recurring revenue that Costco earns before selling a single item off the shelf.

What I find especially interesting is the executive membership tier: 41.2 million paid members, up 9.6% year over year. Executive members pay more, buy more, and renew at higher rates than standard members. As this cohort grows as a share of the total base, membership fee income compounds structurally. That's not a marketing trick; that's a flywheel.

COST is not a high-growth stock in the traditional sense. It's a business with genuine pricing power, extraordinary customer loyalty, and a membership model that makes revenue almost predictable. I added during the pullback earlier this year. I'm not touching it.