Shoppers love Costco, so why is its stock slipping? Business Insider asks
The short explainer drew a comment section full of armchair analysts, quoting price-to-earnings ratios and one famous movie greeter.
Why this story? The video opened at a pace of 67,993 views a day, 11 times a normal first day on this channel (5,946).
Shoppers love #Costco. So why is the popular #wholesaler's stock slipping? #stockmarket #firsttrade
A Business Insider Short usually ends its first day with something under 6,000 views. This one, built around a single question, had passed that several times over within seven hours: if shoppers love the warehouse club so much, why is its stock slipping?
The gap between busy stores and a nervous share price is the puzzle the title sets up. Costco has long been an odd kind of retailer. The chain, founded in 1983 in Seattle by Jim Sinegal and Jeffrey Brotman, earns much of its profit from membership fees rather than from the goods stacked on its pallets, so a crowded parking lot and a stock chart do not always move together.
The comments say even more about the video's pull. Seven hours in, it already had six times as many as a Short here usually collects in a whole day, and many come from viewers running the numbers themselves. Several point to a price-to-earnings ratio in the mid-40s and argue that years of growth are already priced in. One notes the stock is nowhere near its yearly low, and others simply blame an irrational market. One viewer jokes that the real answer is that everyone is broke, and another replies with the greeter's line from Idiocracy. A good share of the busiest comments are about the narration, which some say sounds flat.
The Costco question moved well ahead of the rest of the channel's week, which included a trip 130 meters down into a Turkish marble quarry and a ravioli maker that credits its success to a century-old pasta machine.
Published on Trari
Where next?
What viewers say
Welcome to Costco, I love you 🥰
@dsimpson530See it on YouTube👏 …IT’S BECAUSE WE’RE BROKE! 👏
@peachgoblindSee it on YouTubePE is 45 so all the growth is already priced in.
@jenniferkwun7417See it on YouTube
3 more comments
dipping? it isn't even at the 52 week low
@bradchin7746See it on YouTubeSo basically the stock market and people by and large are irrational.
@chrisp-uk1woSee it on YouTubeCostco makes the bulk of their revenue on memberships. In a world of higher grocery prices and gas, that should equate to more people getting memberships. Incomes are tight. And now you know why Hawaii has THE busiest Costco in the world. It's expensive here and people go to Costco to get by.
@kl3nd4thuSee it on YouTube
Public comments from the video's page on YouTube
- Channel
- Business Insider
- Subscribers
- 10,600,000
- Channel views, last 7 days
- 12,202,138
- Channel views, pace per day
- 1,627,215 (on a normal day: 1,816,838)
- Video published
- October 8, 2026
- Video views so far
- 29,796 (less than a day online)
- Video views, pace per day
- 67,993
The numbers
Shorts on this channel usually start slowly. The Costco question did not, in views or in comments.
💡 Test your knowledge
Costco's house brand, Kirkland Signature, is named after a city in which US state?
Kirkland is a city near Seattle, where Costco had its headquarters before it moved to nearby Issaquah, Washington.



