Costco sells $600,000 diamond sparkler
With high-end bling and a popular restaurant, is the retailer competing with "Breakfast at Tiffany's?'
If your Costco shopping list usually includes bulk toilet paper and rotisserie chickens, you may want to consider adding some big bling.
The warehouse retailer, whose products include higher-end jewelry, disclosed a transaction this week involving a gem that Marilyn Monroe once described in film as a "girl's best friend."
The high-value, large carat diamond sold "for over $600,000," Chief Financial Officer Richard Galanti told analysts and investors during the company's second-quarter earnings call.
Similar ring (Courtesy: Costco)
The rock is a cushion-cut 10-carat solitaire, the company tells FOX Business, and is a portion of the 247,000 carats the retailer sold. The company would not disclose where the sale took place.
| Ticker | Security | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| COST | COSTCO WHOLESALE CORP. | 907.07 | -16.82 | -1.82% |
The high-water mark on prices for such transactions may be rising.
In May 2019, the discount retailer revealed it sold a diamond ring worth more than $400,000.
A quick scan of its current ring offerings shows six-figure prices range from roughly $103,000 to nearly $415,000 for a round brilliant-cut 10.03-carat stone.
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While the ring sale was a minor mention amid the earnings results, Galanti spent more time discussing the coronavirus and its impact. There was “high pick-up in traffic this week” he explained, adding that shoppers are “turning to staples, Clorox Bleach, sanitizer” and other such items. As for the company's Shanghai store, it remains open but is limiting the number of customers allowed inside.
Sales at stores open at least a year rose 12.1 percent in the month of February alone and 8.9 percent for the quarter as a whole.
The ring sale, which took place before the coronavirus panic, buoyed a quarter that produced profit of $931 million, or $2.10 per share, and total revenue of $39.1 billion. Both exceeded expectations.
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Shares of Costo have advanced 5.9 percent this year, even with the volatility in financial markets that has driven the S&P 500 to a loss of more than 8 percent over the same time frame.