This company is paying a superdividend that has surpassed the payouts of the past three years. Costco is planning to do…

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…