If the trade war between the U.S. and China is affecting the latter’s consumer spending, you wouldn’t know it from Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX) earnings. On Thursday, the coffeehouse chain told SBUX stock owners that same-store sales in China were up 1% year-over-year, reversing the decline from last quarter.

Starbucks’ revenue was up everywhere else too, as were same-store sales. But since China is a big and growing concern, that piece of Thursday’s post-close news was seen as a huge victory. The market celebrated by sending Starbucks stock a little more than 10% higher on Friday.

SBUX stock price is now above $64. But the question remains: Is SBUX stock actually a “Buy” again?

For SBUX Stock, Challenges Are Plentiful

It’s not as if Starbucks doesn’t have its challenges, not the least of which is a dented reputation. The company didn’t do itself any favors earlier this year when two black men at a Philadelphia store were arrested because they were waiting for a business associate to arrive before they ordered.

The headwinds go well beyond that gaffe though. Less exclusive rivals like McDonald’s (NYSE:MCD) and Dunkin Brands (NASDAQ:DNKN)  have both stepped up their coffee games in recent years. There’s also the not-so-small reality that with more than 14,000 stores in the U.S. (there are more Starbucks than McDonald’s in the United States), the SBUX market is more than saturated, forcing the company to turn to the tricky Chinese market for growth.

In that light, any forward progress from Starbucks’ last quarter is impressive.

Starbucks Earnings Recap

Total sales were up 11% to $6.3 billion for SBUX’s fiscal fourth quarter ending in September, with most of that growth coming from 604 store openings. Still, global same-store sales were up 3%, and same-store sales grew 4% in the U.S. As was noted, China’s same-store sales were up 1%, with initiatives like its new delivery service in certain Chinese markets starting to pay off. New additions to the menu, which at least partially reflect the brewing health-minded movement, helped, as did the 15.4 million new members of the company’s loyalty-rewards program. Mobile ordering and pre-payments accounted for 14% of the company’s tickets in Q4.

Perhaps more important, profits were up too… at least operating profits. Non-GAAP earnings of 62 cents per share of Starbucks stock were a 13% year-over-year improvement.

It wasn’t a completely bulletproof quarter, however.

While top lines were up, total transactions were down. The total number of tickets processed in Q4 were down 1% year-over-year in the Americas as well as China and other Pacific countries. In Europe, the Middle East and Africa ticket counts were even on a year-over-year basis.

Translation: The only thing driving revenue growth is store openings and higher prices. Ticket sizes, or the average amount spent on each order, was up 4% on a company-wide basis.

The company has to spend a lot more to do the business it’s doing too. Overall operating margins fell from 17.9% to 15.2%, underscoring the idea that Starbucks is buying all of its growth rather than earning it.

The Bottom Line on SBUX Stock

It’s not as if the company isn’t aware of double-edged nature of its revitalization effort. While CEO Kevin Johnson used Q4’s numbers as evidence that the organization was on the right track, he also acknowledged “we still have work to do.”

The company’s guidance wasn’t exactly thrilling either, just adequate. Starbucks says it will likely earn an operating profit of between $2.61 and $2.66 per share of SBUX stock for the new fiscal year now underway, versus an analyst consensus of $2.64. The pros are also calling for revenue of $26.2 billion, while Starbucks is forecasting an improvement of between 5% and 7% to last year’s top line of $24.7 billion. That would translate into a forecasted range of $25.9 billion to $26.4 billion, which is in line with analyst outlooks.

It’s hardly show-stopping guidance, even if investors were buying in earnest immediately after the quarterly report and outlook were posted. The big move has pushed Starbucks shares close to a trailing and forward-looking P/E ratio of nearly 20. Between that reality and the simple fact that the newly-overheated Starbucks stock price is ripe for a pullback, no, SBUX stock is not a buy now.

There’s certainly no reason it shouldn’t be put on your watchlist though.

As of this writing, James Brumley did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities. You can follow him on Twitter, at @jbrumley.