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Ulta Beauty (ULTA) Gains But Lags Market: What You Should Know

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Ulta Beauty (ULTA - Free Report) closed at $506.82 in the latest trading session, marking a +0.83% move from the prior day. This move lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 1.1%. Elsewhere, the Dow gained 0.61%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 6.59%.

Coming into today, shares of the beauty products retailer had gained 8.44% in the past month. In that same time, the Retail-Wholesale sector gained 8.83%, while the S&P 500 gained 4.58%.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from Ulta Beauty as it approaches its next earnings report date. On that day, Ulta Beauty is projected to report earnings of $5.48 per share, which would represent year-over-year growth of 1.29%. Meanwhile, our latest consensus estimate is calling for revenue of $3 billion, up 9.95% from the prior-year quarter.

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 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.

The Zacks Rank system ranges from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell). It has a remarkable, outside-audited track record of success, with #1 stocks delivering an average annual return of +25% since 1988. The Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 0.02% higher within the past month. Ulta Beauty is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).

Digging into valuation, Ulta Beauty currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 21.97. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 14.94, which means Ulta Beauty is trading at a premium to the group.

Meanwhile, ULTA's PEG ratio is currently 1.6. 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. ULTA's industry had an average PEG ratio of 2.01 as of yesterday's close.

The Retail - Miscellaneous industry is part of the Retail-Wholesale sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 85, putting it in the top 34% 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.

Make sure to utilize Zacks.com to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and more, in the coming trading sessions.


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