Jim Cramer Says You Should Buy Costco Wholesale (COST)- Here's Why
We recently published a list of . In this article, we are going to take a look at where Costco Wholesale Corp (NASDAQ:COST) stands against other stocks that Jim Cramer is discussing ahead of Q1 earnings season.
Jim Cramer in a latest program on CNBC talked about the winning sectors so far this year and said the trends show a 'strange' pattern. Cramer specifically mentioned the oil and gas sector which he believed would underperform given President Donald Trump's plan to keep energy prices lower.
'I thought this group would be down given that the president wants to expand drill and we have a slower economy, but the stocks aren't expensive and demand for natural gas very strong,' Cramer said.
Cramer also talked about healthcare and other key sectors that performed well. He believes these patterns show that investors are turning to sectors that perform well during recessions. However, Cramer thinks the state of the economy is better than feared.
'The seven stocks that make up the S&P are too big to dismiss. You need at least some of them to put together a really positive tape. But the bottom line, it's terrific to see such a broad mixture of stocks winning here, from ones that can run in a recession to ones that can rally hard in a robust economy. What it tells me is that the market may be far healthier than we think, and this backdrop simply isn't as bad as many would have you believe.'
READ ALSO: 7 Best Stocks to Buy For Long-Term and 8 Cheap Jim Cramer Stocks to Invest In
For this article, we picked 10 stocks Jim Cramer recently talked about during his programs on CNBC. With each company, we have mentioned the number of hedge fund investors. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter's strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here).
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 75
A caller recently asked Jim Cramer about Costco Wholesale Corp (NASDAQ:COST). Here is what Cramer said:
'I care about profitability, I care about growth. Costco's got them. Costco is a buy. Stock is way too low. I know people are thinking it's rolling over, I think that'll prove to be wrong. Buy some here, buy some next week.'
Aoris Investment Management stated the following regarding Costco Wholesale Corporation (NASDAQ:COST) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:
'Firstly, I think we exercised good valuation discipline in our sales of Costco Wholesale Corporation (NASDAQ:COST) and Cintas. The share prices of these two companies had increased by more than 60% and 40% respectively in the year prior to our sale. It can be difficult as investors to remain objective and not 'fall in love' with an investment when it is performing well. A higher share price doesn't make a business more valuable!
Overall, COST ranks 2nd on our list of stocks that Jim Cramer is discussing ahead of Q1 earnings season. While we acknowledge the potential of COST, our conviction lies in the belief that under the radar AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than COST but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires.
Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


CNBC
5 minutes ago
- CNBC
OpenAI tops 3 million paying business users, launches new features for workplace
OpenAI on Wednesday announced that it now has 3 million paying business users, up from the 2 million it reported in February. The San Francisco-based startup rocketed into the mainstream in late 2022 with its consumer-facing artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT, and began launching workplace-specific versions of the product the following year. The 3 million users include ChatGPT Enterprise, ChatGPT Team and ChatGPT Edu customers, OpenAI said. "There's this really tight interconnect between the growth of ChatGPT as a consumer tool and its adoption in the enterprise and in businesses," OpenAI's chief operating officer Brad Lightcap told CNBC in an interview. The company supported 400 million weekly active users as of February. OpenAI expects revenue of $12.7 billion this year, a source confirmed to CNBC. In September of last year, the company expected to see an annual loss of $5 billion on $3.7 billion in revenue, according to a person close to the company who asked not to be named because the financials are confidential. Lightcap said OpenAI is seeing its business tools adopted across industries, including highly regulated sectors like financial services and health care. Companies including Lowe's, Morgan Stanley and Uber are users, OpenAI said. The company also announced new updates to its business offerings on Wednesday. ChatGPT Team and ChatGPT Enterprise users can now access "connectors," which will allow workers to pull data from third-party tools like Google Drive, Dropbox, SharePoint, Box and OneDrive without leaving ChatGPT. Additional deep research connectors are available in beta. OpenAI launched another capability called "record mode" in ChatGPT, which allows users to record and transcribe their meetings. It's initially available with audio only. Record mode can assist with follow up after a meeting and integrates with internal information like documents and files, the company said. Users can also turn their recordings into documents through the company's Canvas tool. Lightcap said enterprise customers have been asking for updates like these, and that they will help make OpenAI's workplace offerings more useful. "It's got to be able to do tasks for you, and to do that, it's got to really have knowledge of everything going on around you and your work," Lightcap said. "It can't be the intern locked in a closet. It's got to be able to see what you see." OpenAI said it has been signing up nine enterprises a week, and Lightcap said the company will try to sustain that pace over time. "People are starting to really figure out that this is a part of the modern tool stack in the knowledge economy that we live in," he said.


Business Wire
8 minutes ago
- Business Wire
CrowdStrike Named a Customers' Choice in the 2025 Gartner® Peer Insights™ ‘Voice of the Customer' for User Authentication Report
AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- CrowdStrike (NASDAQ: CRWD) today announced its recognition as a Customers' Choice in the 2025 Gartner Peer Insights™ 'Voice of the Customer' for User Authentication report. CrowdStrike has the most 5-star ratings of any vendor evaluated in the report and has a 97% Willingness to Recommend rating, based on 206 overall responses as of February 28, 2025. 'Today's adversaries aren't breaking in – they're logging in. Attackers use stolen credentials and social engineering to gain initial access, then exploit vulnerabilities and abuse remote access tools to escalate privileges and move laterally across environments,' said Elia Zaitsev, chief technology officer, CrowdStrike. 'The Falcon platform is the only solution that stops identity-based attacks at every stage, from initial compromise to lateral movement, across hybrid environments. We believe this recognition validates Falcon as the platform of choice for organizations looking to close protection gaps, reduce complexity, and stop evolving threats with unified, AI-powered protection.' What Customers Are Saying As a native part of the CrowdStrike Falcon® platform, Falcon® Identity Protection stops sophisticated cross-domain and insider threats spanning identity, endpoint, and cloud. Customer reviews highlight the power of CrowdStrike's unified platform and advanced AI to prevent, detect, and respond to identity-based attacks: CrowdStrike Falcon Provides Robust Defense Against Identity Attacks: "CS Falcon Identity Protection is a seamless solution that provides a robust layer of defense against Identity based attacks. It works by incorporating a native AI/ML based threat detection approach to several Identity management solutions like Active Directory being used in an organization. This is achievable using the agent being used for EPP. No separate deployment is required." – IT Security Engineer, Software Industry CrowdStrike Falcon Identity Protection - Protector of the Realm: 'The ability to detect and prevent identity based attacks and account takeover with real-time monitoring makes it an excellent choice. Integration with leading platforms and automated threat response capabilities make it adaptable. With its AI-driven detection and cloud-native architecture, Falcon Identity Protection offers strong prevention capabilities and advanced threat detection makes it the best choice for businesses seeking to enhance their security in the modern era.' – Engineer - ITS Security, Software Industry Navigating Real-Time Scanning and Identifying Threats: 'It is an exceptional tool for securing user identities & preventing breaches. With its AI-driven detection, it provides protection against account takeovers, credential stuffing, & other identity-based attacks. Its robust features make it ideal for protecting user identities.' – IT Lead, Banking Industry Why Our Customers Choose Falcon Identity Protection CrowdStrike's leadership in identity security is built on its unified platform architecture and deep understanding of real-world adversary tradecraft, delivering: End-to-End Hybrid Identity Security: Identity is under relentless attack, and the rise of agentic AI is fueling a surge in machine identities. CrowdStrike provides the only unified platform that secures both human and non-human identities at every stage of the attack – from initial compromise to privilege escalation with Falcon® Privileged Access, and lateral movement – across hybrid environments. AI-Powered, Adversary-Driven Approach: Falcon Identity Protection is powered by real-time signals from endpoints and devices, threat intelligence from frontline experts, and trillions of daily security events. This data advantage creates a continuous feedback loop that enables AI-driven protection to prevent, detect, and respond to identity-based attacks. Agentic AI Innovation: CrowdStrike brings the power of agentic AI to Falcon Identity Protection with Charlotte AI Agentic Detection Triage, which autonomously triages cross-domain attack detections with over 98% accuracy to rapidly prioritize the most critical threats. Cross-Domain Protection: Falcon Identity Protection stops sophisticated cross-domain and insider threats spanning identity, endpoint, and cloud. By sharing telemetry and intelligence across Falcon platform modules, CrowdStrike's unified architecture exposes attack paths and stops breaches before impact. Additional Resources To learn more about CrowdStrike's recognition in the 2025 Gartner Peer Insights™ 'Voice of the Customer' for User Authentication report, please visit our website and read our blog. To learn more about Falcon Identity Protection, please visit our website. Gartner Disclaimer GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally, PEER INSIGHTS is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved. Gartner Peer Insights content consists of the opinions of individual end users based on their own experiences, and should not be construed as statements of fact, nor do they represent the views of Gartner or its affiliates. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in this content nor makes any warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this content, about its accuracy or completeness, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. About CrowdStrike CrowdStrike (NASDAQ: CRWD), a global cybersecurity leader, has redefined modern security with the world's most advanced cloud-native platform for protecting critical areas of enterprise risk – endpoints and cloud workloads, identity and data. Powered by the CrowdStrike Security Cloud and world-class AI, the CrowdStrike Falcon® platform leverages real-time indicators of attack, threat intelligence, evolving adversary tradecraft and enriched telemetry from across the enterprise to deliver hyper-accurate detections, automated protection and remediation, elite threat hunting and prioritized observability of vulnerabilities. Purpose-built in the cloud with a single lightweight-agent architecture, the Falcon platform delivers rapid and scalable deployment, superior protection and performance, reduced complexity and immediate time-to-value. CrowdStrike: We stop breaches. © 2025 CrowdStrike, Inc. All rights reserved. CrowdStrike and CrowdStrike Falcon are marks owned by CrowdStrike, Inc. and are registered in the United States and other countries. CrowdStrike owns other trademarks and service marks and may use the brands of third parties to identify their products and services.


CNBC
13 minutes ago
- CNBC
Cramer calls Wells Fargo's asset-cap removal a 'watershed moment,' raises price target on the stock
Wells Fargo is unshackled. That's according to Jim Cramer and Wall Street analysts, who are both forecasting more upside for the Club stock following the Federal Reserve's removal of the bank's $1.95 trillion asset cap Tuesday evening. The seven-year lid on Wells' balance sheet growth was precipitated by the bank's past misdeeds, such as its notorious fake accounts scandal in the 2010s. Bank of America and Morgan Stanley are among the Wall Street shops that became more optimistic Wells Fargo shares in response to the long-awaited development. Bank of America went to $90 a share from $83, while Morgan Stanley went to $87 from $77. Piper Sandler and Evercore ISI also upped their price targets. The Club is doing the same, hiking ours to $90 a share from $80. "I think this is a watershed moment" and a "pivotal milestone," Jim said Wednesday. With the nearly $2 trillion lid on its balance sheet gone, the bank can grow its deposit base further, invest more into high-growth lines of business and can lower costs that were previously poured into compliance and remediation efforts. On Wednesday, at least, the market reaction is somewhat subdued, with Wells Fargo shares up less than 1% to roughly $76 apiece. Investors had likely been pricing some of the good news, viewing the asset-cap removal as a "when, not if" event. Entering Wednesday's session, Wells Fargo's had significantly outperformed a group of banking peers since Election Day in November, as investors bet on an easier regulatory regime under President Donald Trump's second term. Wells Fargo also had numerous other scandal-related penalties lifted earlier this year. No matter the stock move Wednesday, Jim said investors need to remember that this is "a fundamental change" for the bank and CEO Charlie Scharf. The executive has wanted to "turbocharge" its growth, but he had "playing with shackles," Jim said. "The shackles are off." Wall Street analysts echoed similar sentiments. Bank of America, for example, described the event as a "positive catalyst, both fundamentally and for stock valuation." "We see potential for a new pool of investors who had been fatigued by the regulatory overhang to step-in given WFC's idiosyncratic growth story, room for efficiency gains in the consumer bank and potential for capital relief," the analysts, who reiterated their buy rating on the stock, wrote in a note to clients. Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley said the cap's removal will "spur a multi-year period of growth at Wells." Analysts cited more loan growth and an expansion into its capital markets business. "An unconstrained Wells will put balance sheet and capital to work in markets, supporting and financing client trading activity, driving higher markets-related NII and overall trading volumes," the analysts, who reiterated their buy-equivalent rating, said. WFC YTD mountain Wells Fargo (WFC) year-to-date performance All of this aligns with CEO Scharf's comments Wednesday in an exclusive interview with CNBC. The executive, who was hired in 2019 to clean up the bank, described the cap's removal as "hugely significant." He pointed to growth in customer deposits first and foremost because now the bank can expand its balance sheet. That's because by some estimates Wells Fargo has missed out on $400 billion worth of deposits over the past seven years due to the Fed-imposed regulatory punishment. It's more than just the deposit base, though, according to Scharf. "It's the ability to provide advice, provide investment services. If it's in corporate, it's the ability to help [clients] access public markets," he continued. "With the exception of the mortgage business, all have the opportunity to grow – both in terms of returns and in terms of rate of growth." Jim said Wells Fargo can also compete better among its Wall Street peers in the long run. "Before this cap, these banks were all kind of clustered. Since this cap, Wells has fallen so far behind," he said. "I think Charlie is going to go for JPMorgan, " Jim added, arguing that Wells Fargo can grab more share in businesses like commercial banking and credit cards. Asked specifically about going after JPMorgan, the CEO told Jim that Wells now has "the ability to compete differently moving forward," but "there's no one person we're targeting." Although none of these changes can happen overnight, management has been laying the groundwork for a turnaround in its businesses for years. Case in point: Wells Fargo has made a slew of senior level hires in its corporate and investment banking division. The expansion into Wall Street dealmaking and capital markets diversifies Wells Fargo's revenues further, so that the firm doesn't rely so heavily on interest-based incomes that are at the mercy of the Fed's monetary policy moves. And although Wells will definitely save on expenses in remediation efforts, the bank still plans to invest into compliance. "Yesterday versus today, the only thing that's different is the perception of Wells Fargo, which is incredibly important because we've always been perceived as being in the penalty box," Scharf said. He continued, "This is not the kind of environment where you come out guns ablazing on no light switch that's going to go off today versus yesterday." Still, that doesn't mean the stock can't benefit in the meantime. (Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust is long WFC. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.