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Ulta Beauty (ULTA) Dips More Than Broader Markets: What You Should Know

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In the latest trading session, Ulta Beauty (ULTA - Free Report) closed at $470.55, marking a -1.93% move from the previous day. This change lagged the S&P 500's 0.79% loss on the day. Meanwhile, the Dow lost 1.07%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, lost 2.71%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the beauty products retailer had gained 15.47% over the past month. This has outpaced the Retail-Wholesale sector's gain of 4% and the S&P 500's gain of 4.16% in that time.

Investors will be hoping for strength from Ulta Beauty as it approaches its next earnings release. In that report, analysts expect Ulta Beauty to post earnings of $5.81 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 1.93%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $2.49 billion, up 8.34% from the year-ago period.

ULTA's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $25.05 per share and revenue of $11.08 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of +4.33% and +8.54%, respectively.

Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for Ulta Beauty. These recent revisions tend to reflect the evolving nature of short-term business trends. As such, positive estimate revisions reflect analyst optimism about the company's business and profitability.

Based on our research, we believe these estimate revisions are directly related to near-team stock moves. To benefit from this, we have developed the Zacks Rank, a proprietary model which takes these estimate changes into account and provides an actionable rating system.

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. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection has moved 0.04% lower. Ulta Beauty is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Valuation is also important, so investors should note that Ulta Beauty has a Forward P/E ratio of 19.16 right now. This valuation marks a premium compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 13.04.

Investors should also note that ULTA has a PEG ratio of 1.56 right now. 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. ULTA's industry had an average PEG ratio of 1.63 as of yesterday's close.

The Retail - Miscellaneous industry is part of the Retail-Wholesale sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 173, putting it in the bottom 32% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank gauges the strength of our 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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