Question 1

Which is bigger, COST or HSY?

Accepted Answer

Costco Wholesale Corp is the larger company — market cap $419B vs $32.7B for The Hershey Company.

Question 2

Which is more profitable, COST or HSY?

Accepted Answer

HSY keeps more of each revenue dollar as profit — net margin 12.2% vs 3.0% for COST.

Question 3

Which stock is cheaper, COST or HSY?

Accepted Answer

On earnings, HSY trades at a lower P/E — 27.9 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 HSY?

Accepted Answer

HSY yields 6.75% vs 0.59% for COST.

Question 5

Which is the better stock — COST or HSY?

Accepted Answer

On reported financials, COST leads 6 of 10 comparable metrics and HSY leads 4. StockCV rates COST “Mixed” and HSY “Strained”. This is information, not investment advice — compare the full CVs before drawing conclusions.

Metric	COST	HSY
Price	$946.00	$162.74
Market cap	$419B	$32.7B
Revenue (TTM)	$303B	$12.2B
Revenue growth	+7.8%	+3.9%
Net margin	3.0%	12.2%
Free cash flow	$9.38B	$2.23B
Net cash (debt)	—	($3.97B)
1-year price return	+0.3%	-15.5%
P/E	45.5	27.9
P/E vs own history (cheap-side %)	49%	7%
Dividend yield	0.59%	6.75%
Return on equity	28%	31%
CV checks passed	9 of 11	8 of 11
Employees	341,000	19,595

Costco Wholesale Corp vs The Hershey Company