Ulta Beauty (NASDAQ:ULTA) Lowered to “Market Perform” Rating by William Blair

William Blair lowered shares of Ulta Beauty (NASDAQ:ULTA) from an outperform rating to a market perform rating in a research note published on Thursday, Marketbeat reports.

ULTA has been the topic of several other reports. DA Davidson dropped their target price on Ulta Beauty from $507.00 to $435.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, August 30th. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price objective on shares of Ulta Beauty from $385.00 to $395.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 17th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their target price on shares of Ulta Beauty from $450.00 to $472.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, October 21st. Raymond James cut their price target on Ulta Beauty from $450.00 to $440.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, October 14th. Finally, TD Cowen decreased their price objective on Ulta Beauty from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, October 17th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, twelve have given a hold rating and twelve have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $420.71.

Ulta Beauty Trading Down 0.1 %

Shares of NASDAQ ULTA opened at $338.38 on Thursday. The company has a market capitalization of $15.94 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 13.58, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.94 and a beta of 1.33. Ulta Beauty has a twelve month low of $318.17 and a twelve month high of $574.76. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $376.80 and a 200-day simple moving average of $377.22.

Ulta Beauty (NASDAQ:ULTA) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, August 29th. The specialty retailer reported $5.30 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $5.47 by ($0.17). Ulta Beauty had a return on equity of 54.02% and a net margin of 10.68%. The business had revenue of $2.55 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.61 billion. During the same period last year, the company posted $6.02 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up .9% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts predict that Ulta Beauty will post 23.07 earnings per share for the current year.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Ulta Beauty

Large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. International Assets Investment Management LLC increased its stake in Ulta Beauty by 180,713.0% in the 3rd quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 1,238,569 shares of the specialty retailer’s stock valued at $481,952,000 after buying an additional 1,237,884 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Ulta Beauty by 0.9% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,188,730 shares of the specialty retailer’s stock worth $461,059,000 after acquiring an additional 10,153 shares in the last quarter. Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board acquired a new stake in Ulta Beauty during the third quarter valued at $359,480,000. TD Asset Management Inc grew its stake in Ulta Beauty by 14.1% in the second quarter. TD Asset Management Inc now owns 620,793 shares of the specialty retailer’s stock valued at $239,545,000 after purchasing an additional 76,721 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Champlain Investment Partners LLC increased its position in Ulta Beauty by 5.4% in the 3rd quarter. Champlain Investment Partners LLC now owns 610,400 shares of the specialty retailer’s stock worth $237,519,000 after purchasing an additional 31,540 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 90.39% of the company’s stock.

About Ulta Beauty

Ulta Beauty, Inc operates as a specialty beauty retailer in the United States. The company offers branded and private label beauty products, including cosmetics, fragrance, haircare, skincare, bath and body products, professional hair products, and salon styling tools through its Ulta Beauty stores, shop-in-shops, Ulta.com website, and its mobile applications.