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Ulta Beauty (ULTA) Ascends While Market Falls: Some Facts to Note

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The latest trading session saw Ulta Beauty (ULTA - Free Report) ending at $541.29, denoting a +1.73% adjustment from its last day's close. The stock's change was more than the S&P 500's daily loss of 0.6%. Meanwhile, the Dow experienced a drop of 0.17%, and the technology-dominated Nasdaq saw a decrease of 0.92%.

Heading into today, shares of the beauty products retailer had gained 11.57% over the past month, outpacing the Retail-Wholesale sector's gain of 5.07% and the S&P 500's gain of 3.56% in that time.

The investment community will be closely monitoring the performance of Ulta Beauty in its forthcoming earnings report. In that report, analysts expect Ulta Beauty to post earnings of $7.49 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 12.13%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $3.52 billion, up 8.99% from the year-ago period.

Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for Ulta Beauty. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of near-term business trends. As a result, upbeat changes in estimates indicate analysts' favorable outlook on the company's business health and profitability.

Research indicates that these estimate revisions are directly correlated with near-term share price momentum. To utilize this, we have created the Zacks Rank, a proprietary model that integrates these estimate changes and provides a functional rating system.

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 0.19% higher. Ulta Beauty is holding a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy) right now.

In terms of valuation, Ulta Beauty is presently being traded at a Forward P/E ratio of 19.56. This valuation marks a premium compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 13.04.

We can also see that ULTA currently has a PEG ratio of 2.19. This metric is used similarly to the famous P/E ratio, but the PEG ratio also takes into account the stock's expected earnings growth rate. Retail - Miscellaneous stocks are, on average, holding a PEG ratio of 2.29 based on yesterday's closing prices.

The Retail - Miscellaneous industry is part of the Retail-Wholesale sector. At present, this industry carries a Zacks Industry Rank of 87, placing it within the top 35% of over 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.

Be sure to use Zacks.com to monitor all these stock-influencing metrics, and more, throughout the forthcoming trading sessions.


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