Costco Wholesale Corporation (NASDAQ:COST) stock is moving higher on Thursday, along with other retail stocks, following strong fiscal earnings from Walmart (NYSE:WMT).

What To Know: Walmart reported 2024 fiscal year second quarter earnings before the market opened on Thursday. The company reported EPS of 67 cents beating analysts estimate of 64 cents and revenue of $169.33 billion beating analysts estimate of $168.56 billion.

What Else: Costco stock is currently trading at approximately $871, moving above the stock's 50-day moving average of $845. The stock's 52-week range is from $530 to $896. Its average session volume is 1.95 million, which it is trading below at 319.65 thousand at the time of publication Thursday.

Analyst Changes: Multiple analysts have issued price target adjustments within the past week.

• Oppenheimer analyst Rupesh Parikh maintained Costco with an Outperform and lowered the price target from $950 to $925.
• Deutsche Bank analyst Krisztina Katai maintained Costco with a Buy and raised the price target from $925 to $927.
• Gordon Haskett analyst Chuck Grom upgraded Costco from Accumulate to Buy and announced a $925 price target.
• BMO Capital analyst Kelly Bania maintained Costco with an Outperform and raised the price target from $875 to $950.

How To Buy Costco Shares

By now you're likely curious about how to participate in the market for Costco – be it to purchase shares, or even attempt to bet against the company.

Buying shares is typically done through a brokerage account. You can find a list of possible trading platforms here. Many will allow you to buy 'fractional shares,' which allows you to own portions of stock without buying an entire share. For example, some stock, like Berkshire Hathaway, or Amazon.com, can cost thousands of dollars to own just one share. However, if you only want to invest a fraction of that, brokerages will allow you to do so.

In the case of Costco, which is trading at $870.00 as of publishing time, $100 would buy you 0.11 shares of stock.

If you're looking to bet against a company, the process is more complex. You'll need access to an options trading platform, or a broker who will allow you to 'go short' a share of stock by lending you the shares to sell. The process of shorting a stock can be found at this resource.

Otherwise, if your broker allows you to trade options, you can either buy a put option, or sell a call option at a strike price above where shares are currently trading – either way it allows you to profit off of the share price decline.

COST Price Action: Costco shares are trading 0.8% higher at $870.00, according to data from Benzinga Pro.

Related Link:

• Retail Sales Soar In July, Weekly Jobless Claims Undercut Expectations: Traders Lean Towards 25-Basis-Point Cut In September

Image via Flickr/ Mike Mozart