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Ulta Beauty (ULTA) Outpaces Stock Market Gains: What You Should Know

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In the latest trading session, Ulta Beauty (ULTA - Free Report) closed at $529.46, marking a +1.63% move from the previous day. This move outpaced the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.1%. At the same time, the Dow added 0.3%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 2.19%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the beauty products retailer had lost 0.04% over the past month. This has lagged the Retail-Wholesale sector's gain of 3.03% and the S&P 500's gain of 3.13% in that time.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from Ulta Beauty as it approaches its next earnings report date. The company is expected to report EPS of $6.75, up 7.14% from the prior-year quarter. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $2.61 billion, up 11.13% from the year-ago period.

ULTA's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $25.21 per share and revenue of $11.07 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of +5% and +8.46%, respectively.

It is also important to note the recent changes to analyst estimates for Ulta Beauty. These recent revisions tend to reflect the evolving nature of short-term business trends. As a result, we can interpret positive estimate revisions as a good sign for the company's business outlook.

Research indicates that these estimate revisions are directly correlated with near-term share price momentum. We developed the Zacks Rank to capitalize on this phenomenon. Our system takes these estimate changes into account and delivers a clear, actionable rating model.

The Zacks Rank system, which ranges from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), has an impressive outside-audited track record of outperformance, with #1 stocks generating an average annual return of +25% since 1988. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 3.72% higher. Ulta Beauty is holding a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy) right now.

Valuation is also important, so investors should note that Ulta Beauty has a Forward P/E ratio of 20.66 right now. This represents a premium compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 11.96.

Meanwhile, ULTA's PEG ratio is currently 1.69. The PEG ratio is similar to the widely-used P/E ratio, but this metric also takes the company's expected earnings growth rate into account. Retail - Miscellaneous stocks are, on average, holding a PEG ratio of 1.92 based on yesterday's closing prices.

The Retail - Miscellaneous industry is part of the Retail-Wholesale sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 97, which puts it in the top 39% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank includes is listed in order from best to worst in terms of the average Zacks Rank of the individual companies within each of these sectors. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.

Be sure to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and many more, on Zacks.com.


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