Question 1

Which is bigger, COST or HRL?

Accepted Answer

Costco Wholesale Corp is the larger company — market cap $419B vs $10.6B for Hormel Foods Corporation.

Question 2

Which is more profitable, COST or HRL?

Accepted Answer

COST keeps more of each revenue dollar as profit — net margin 3.0% vs 2.8% for HRL.

Question 3

Which stock is cheaper, COST or HRL?

Accepted Answer

On earnings, HRL trades at a lower P/E — 30.8 vs 45.5 for COST. A lower P/E means paying less per dollar of earnings.

Question 4

Which pays a higher dividend, COST or HRL?

Accepted Answer

HRL yields 6.07% vs 0.59% for COST.

Question 5

Which is the better stock — COST or HRL?

Accepted Answer

On reported financials, COST leads 7 of 9 comparable metrics and HRL leads 2. StockCV rates COST “Mixed” and HRL “Mixed”. This is information, not investment advice — compare the full CVs before drawing conclusions.

Metric	COST	HRL
Price	$946.00	$19.27
Market cap	$419B	$10.6B
Revenue (TTM)	$303B	$12.1B
Revenue growth	+7.8%	-0.9%
Net margin	3.0%	2.8%
Free cash flow	$9.38B	$781M
Net cash (debt)	—	($2.15B)
1-year price return	+0.3%	-18.9%
P/E	45.5	30.8
P/E vs own history (cheap-side %)	49%	8%
Dividend yield	0.59%	6.07%
Return on equity	28%	4%
CV checks passed	9 of 11	9 of 11
Employees	341,000	20,000

Costco Wholesale Corp vs Hormel Foods Corporation