Petco Health and Wellness Co Inc (NASDAQ:WOOF) shares are trading higher Thursday after the pet retailer posted fourth‑quarter results that included a slight revenue beat.
- Petco Health and Wellness shares are climbing with conviction. Why are WOOF shares rallying?
Revenue Beat Offsets Earnings Miss
Petco reported a quarterly loss of 1 cent per share, falling short of analysts’ expectations for a 2 cent profit. Revenue, however, came in at $1.515 billion, just above the $1.513 billion consensus estimate.
Company Says Turnaround Work Is Done, Growth Phase Begins
“In fiscal 2025, we strengthened our leadership team and rebuilt the foundation of our economic model, enabling us to exceed our profitability goals,” CEO Joel Anderson said.
“With that work largely complete, we are entering the next phase of our strategy focused on driving sustainable, profitable top‑line growth,” Anderson added. That shift from defense to offense is typically welcomed by investors, especially in a retail environment where many companies are still struggling to regain momentum.
Petco expects fiscal 2026 net sales to be flat to up 1.5% year-over-year.
Petco Technical Analysis
Petco is trading 30.1% above its 20-day simple moving average (SMA) and 10.4% above its 100-day SMA, showing a sharp short-term snapback that’s starting to repair the intermediate trend. Shares are up 31.71% over the past 12 months, and the stock is positioned closer to its 52-week lows than highs after printing a 52-week low on 2026-03-09.
The RSI is at 40.39, which sits in neutral territory and suggests the rally hasn’t pushed momentum into stretched levels yet. Meanwhile, MACD is at -0.0839 and remains below its signal line at -0.0793, keeping a bearish tilt in place even as price lifts.
With RSI below 50 and MACD still bearish, the indicators point to mixed momentum — price is bouncing, but trend confirmation is still catching up.
- Key Resistance: $3.50
- Key Support: $3.00
Sector Performance: Petco is outperforming its Consumer Discretionary peers by about 33.90 percentage points today, a standout move considering the sector is down 1.61%. That relative strength matters because Consumer Discretionary ranks 10 out of 11 sectors (one of the weakest groups on the day), so buyers are clearly targeting Petco specifically rather than the group.
Zooming out, the sector has been under pressure, down 5.05% over the past 30 days and down 6.91% over the past 90 days. In that context, Petco’s surge looks more like a counter-trend rally inside a still-challenged sector backdrop, making follow-through above resistance the key tell.
Analyst Consensus & Recent Actions: The stock carries a Hold rating with an average price target of $3.73. Recent analyst moves include:
- Jefferies: Upgraded to Buy (Raises Target to $5.00) (Mar. 12)
- Evercore ISI Group: In-Line (Lowers Target to $3.00) (Feb. 3)
- Evercore ISI Group: In-Line (Raises Target to $4.00) (Nov. 26, 2025)
WOOF Price Action: Petco Health shares were up 37.08% at $3.29 at the time of publication on Thursday, according to Benzinga Pro.
Image: Shutterstock
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