The company earns almost no profit on every kilogram of shrimp, every package of toilet paper, and every liter of gasoline it sells, yet it has a record $20 billion in its accounts. Net income rose by 15% in the last quarter, and in its forty years of existence, no one has found a way to replicate the model that has since built a base of 82.9 million paying members with a 92% renewal rate in the U.S. and Canada.

The explanation is simple and unexpected: the company earns almost nothing from the sale of goods; all of its actual profit comes from annual membership fees—with a margin of 75 to 80%—which members pay with greater reliability than insurance premiums. The market has long since figured out this paradox and today values the company at a P/E ratio of 47x, which is 20% higher than the ten-year average—but the question remains whether record cash reserves, accelerating e-commerce, and a historical pattern of special dividends conceal a catalyst that Costco’s $COST price has not yet…