Investors have vastly different ideas about Costco Wholesale (NASDAQ: COST) and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) stocks right now. The e-commerce giant's shares are beating the market by a wide margin through mid-July, while the warehouse retailer is barely matching the 17% gain in the S&P 500.

That gap can be partly explained by shifting expectations around short-term growth trends. Costco is going through a slowdown on this score as consumers tilt spending away from many of the consumer discretionary purchases they favored over the last few years. Amazon, meanwhile, is targeting faster earnings growth ahead thanks to a slimmer cost profile and the expansion of niches like cloud services.

With that big picture in mind, let's take a closer look at these two businesses to see which could be the better fit in your portfolio.

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Source Fool.com