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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 $515.97, marking a +0.41% move from the previous day. This change outpaced the S&P 500's 0.3% gain on the day. Meanwhile, the Dow gained 0.14%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, added 5.74%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the beauty products retailer had lost 3.89% over the past month. This has lagged the Retail-Wholesale sector's gain of 3.51% and the S&P 500's gain of 0.85% in that time.

Ulta Beauty will be looking to display strength as it nears its next earnings release, which is expected to be May 25, 2023. On that day, Ulta Beauty is projected to report earnings of $6.79 per share, which would represent year-over-year growth of 7.78%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $2.61 billion, up 11.16% from the year-ago period.

ULTA's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $25.23 per share and revenue of $11.07 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of +5.08% and +8.43%, respectively.

Any recent changes to analyst estimates for Ulta Beauty should also be noted by investors. These revisions typically reflect the latest short-term business trends, which can change frequently. With this in mind, we can consider positive estimate revisions a sign of optimism about the company's business outlook.

Our research shows that these estimate changes are directly correlated with near-term stock prices. 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.

Ranging from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), the Zacks Rank system has a proven, outside-audited track record of outperformance, with #1 stocks returning an average of +25% annually since 1988. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 0.02% higher. Ulta Beauty is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

Investors should also note Ulta Beauty's current valuation metrics, including its Forward P/E ratio of 20.36. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 11.15, so we one might conclude that Ulta Beauty is trading at a premium comparatively.

Also, we should mention that ULTA has a PEG ratio of 1.66. This popular metric is similar to the widely-known P/E ratio, with the difference being that the PEG ratio also takes into account the company's expected earnings growth rate. Retail - Miscellaneous stocks are, on average, holding a PEG ratio of 1.79 based on yesterday's closing prices.

The Retail - Miscellaneous industry is part of the Retail-Wholesale sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 191, putting it in the bottom 25% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank gauges the strength of our individual industry groups by measuring the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks within the groups. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.

You can find more information on all of these metrics, and much more, on Zacks.com.


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