BJ's headline comparable club sales rose 11.9%. Excluding gasoline, the figure the company actually guides on, they rose 3.1%.

by Marcus Donnelly · August 21, 2026

Market Reaction Reporter, Earnings Dispatch

BJ's Wholesale Club Holdings (NYSE: BJ) released second-quarter results at 6:45 a.m. Eastern on Friday, August 21, hours before the opening bell, according to 24/7 Wall St.'s earnings calendar and the timestamp on the press release wire; the company's release says its conference call was scheduled for 8:30 a.m. Eastern the same morning. The headline comparable club sales number is one of the more instructive figures of the retail earnings week. Comparable club sales for the 13 weeks ended August 1, 2026 rose 11.9%. Comparable club sales excluding gasoline rose 3.1%. The 8.8-point gap between those two figures is gasoline, a category the company sells at low margin and prices as a membership acquisition tool.

This is not a disclosure problem — BJ's publishes both figures side by side in the release and guides the business on the ex-gasoline measure. It is a reading problem, because the two numbers support very different narratives about the health of the club. On which one carried the quarter, the fullest account comes from outside the release. Benzinga, in its write-up of management's remarks on the earnings call, reported that comparable fuel gallons jumped 10.5% in the quarter even as industry data showed overall comparable gallons fell about 5%, and that shoppers were increasingly turning to BJ's gas stations as elevated fuel prices sharpened the appeal. Neither the gallons figure nor the industry comparison appears anywhere in the company's own earnings release, which carries no fuel-volume metrics at all; both rest on Benzinga's account of the call.

Chief Financial Officer Laura Felice put it directly in the release: "Our second quarter results reflect strong execution and continued momentum in the business. We delivered solid profitability, grew membership fee income, and outperformed on gas — all of which enabled us to raise our full year adjusted EPS guidance. We are maintaining our full year comp sales guidance and remain confident in our ability to deliver sustainable, profitable growth." That passage contains both halves of the story: gas outperformance is named among the drivers of the earnings raise, and the comp guidance — which is stated ex-gasoline — did not move.

One thing BJ's does that most of its reporting peers this month do not: its adjusted number is not a different number. GAAP net income for the quarter was $173.867 million and adjusted net income was $173.867 million. GAAP diluted EPS was $1.36 and adjusted EPS was $1.36. The reconciliation shows zero dollars of restructuring and zero dollars of tax impact from adjustments in the quarter. The year-ago quarter carried $1.043 million of restructuring and a $292 thousand tax offset, taking reported net income of $150.705 million to adjusted net income of $151.456 million — amounts too small to move the $1.14 per-share figure on either basis. The only place the two measures diverge at the per-share line is the prior-year first half, where GAAP diluted EPS of $2.27 became adjusted EPS of $2.28. This year's first half is $2.46 on both.

The rest of the profit and loss statement is less flattering than the comp headline. Total revenues were $6.2266 billion against $5.3802 billion a year earlier, up about 15.7%, with net sales of $6.0910 billion against $5.2569 billion. Membership fee income rose 9.9% to $135.604 million. Adjusted EBITDA was $347.196 million against $303.861 million, up about 14.3%. But merchandise gross margin rate, which the company notes excludes gasoline sales and membership fee income, declined by approximately 20 basis points in the quarter and approximately 10 basis points over the first six months. Selling, general and administrative expenses were $851.206 million against $786.358 million, up about 8.2%.

So the earnings growth is not a merchandise margin story. Net income rose about 15.4%, to $173.867 million from $150.705 million, while diluted EPS rose 19.3%, to $1.36 from $1.14. The gap between those two growth rates is share count: diluted weighted-average shares were 127,738 thousand in the quarter, against 132,517 thousand a year earlier. Fuel, membership fees and a smaller denominator did the work; the merchandise margin rate went the other way.

Against the published consensus figures, the quarter came in ahead — with the caveat that no compiler is named for either. Investing.com reported a consensus EPS estimate of $1.17 and a revenue estimate of $5.97 billion, without identifying who assembled them; Benzinga cited $1.17 and $5.94 billion, likewise without a named compiler. Reported adjusted EPS of $1.36 is $0.19 above the $1.17 figure both outlets carry, and reported net sales of $6.091 billion is above both revenue figures. Because BJ's adjusted and GAAP numbers are the same this quarter, there is at least no ambiguity about which basis any comparison is measured on — a rarer thing than it should be.

The guidance raise is where the arithmetic earns its keep. BJ's now expects full-year fiscal 2026 adjusted EPS of $4.60 to $4.80, a range stated in the company's release. The prior range of $4.40 to $4.60 is not restated in Friday's release; it is confirmed by the company's own fiscal 2025 results release of March 5, 2026, which set the original fiscal 2026 outlook at $4.40 to $4.60, and RTTNews described Friday's move in the same terms. That is a 20-cent increase at both ends of the range. By this desk's arithmetic, the second-quarter beat against the $1.17 consensus cited above was 19 cents. Put plainly, and as the desk's own comparison rather than the company's: the raise is approximately the size of the quarter that has already happened. Very little, if any, additional profit appears to have been added to the second half.

The implied second half points the same way, again on the desk's arithmetic rather than any figure the company publishes. First-half adjusted EPS was $2.46. Subtract that from the new annual range and the back half is implied at $2.14 to $2.34. The comparable prior-year figure the desk computes is $2.12 — fiscal 2025 adjusted EPS of $4.40, from the March release, less first-half fiscal 2025 adjusted EPS of $2.28, from Friday's release. On those numbers the second half is implied to grow roughly 1% to 10%, after a first half that grew about 7.9% and a second quarter that grew 19.3%. BJ's does not guide to a half-year figure, and the company has not characterised its outlook this way.

The comparable sales guidance tells the same story from the other direction. BJ's is holding full-year comparable club sales excluding gasoline at an increase of 2.0% to 3.0% — the identical range it issued in March with its fiscal 2025 results. First-half ex-gasoline comps ran 2.3%, and the second quarter ran 3.1%. Reaffirming a 2.0% to 3.0% band after a 3.1% quarter implies the company is not extrapolating that quarter forward. Capital expenditures guidance of approximately $800 million is also unchanged from the original outlook.

For context on the merchandise trend, fiscal 2025 comparable club sales excluding gasoline rose 2.6% for the full year. This year's first half at 2.3% is running slightly behind that, notwithstanding the 3.1% second quarter. The digital line is the standout inside the merchandise business: the release states digitally enabled comparable sales growth was 30%, reflecting two-year stacked comp growth of 64%. The company opened three new clubs and one new gas station in the quarter, and said member count grew to a record 8.5 million.

Chairman and Chief Executive Bob Eddy framed the period in the release as follows: "We delivered a strong second quarter, coming in ahead of our expectations across sales and profitability, with strong membership momentum. Our value proposition continued to resonate with members in our clubs and at our gas stations, and the momentum we're seeing across our strategic priorities gives us real confidence in the road ahead. We remain excited about our strategy and committed to investing in growth for the long term."

On the market reaction, the important caveat is timing. BJ's reported before Friday's open, and Friday's session was still in progress at the time of writing, so the company has not yet had a completed trading day in which to price the quarter. RTTNews, in a piece timestamped 7:21 a.m. Eastern, recorded the stock at $90.90 in premarket trade on the NYSE, down $0.30 or 0.33% — a change that implies a slightly different reference price than the one below, and the discrepancy is RTTNews's, not resolved here. Benzinga reported shares up 3.59% at $94.58 intraday, at the time of publication Friday, in an article timestamped 10:25 a.m. Eastern. Investing.com put the last close before Friday's session — Thursday, August 20 — at $91.30, and that base reconciles with the Benzinga figure: $91.30 grossed up by 3.59% is $94.58. Any figure describing where BJ's finished Friday does not yet exist.