BlackRock Fund Advisors recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Ulta Beauty Inc (NASDAQ:ULTA). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Consumer Cyclical company by 0.04% to 3.03 million shares with purchase of 1100.0 shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 6.16% valued currently at $1.29 billion. In addition, Geode Capital Management LLC raised its holdings by 13050.0 to 1.13 million shares. And Goldman Sachs Asset Management LP has lifted its position by 4.66% or 26247.0 shares – to 0.59 million shares.
With over 0.45 million Ulta Beauty Inc (ULTA) shares trading Friday and a closing price of $489.99 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $222.06 million. The shares have shown a positive half year performance of 4.12% and its price on 12/29/23 gained nearly 0.65%. Currently, there are 50.36M common shares owned by the public and among those 48.47M shares have been available to trade.
3 Tiny Stocks Primed to Explode
The world's greatest investor — Warren Buffett — has a simple formula for making big money in the markets. He buys up valuable assets when they are very cheap. For stock market investors that means buying up cheap small cap stocks like these with huge upside potential.
We've set up an alert service to help smart investors take full advantage of the small cap stocks primed for big returns.
Click here for full details and to join for free
Sponsored
An analysis of what Wall Street brokers have to say about the expected price targets for this stock gives us this picture: 30 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for ULTA have a consensus price objective of $537.39. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $620.00 and a low of $400.00. The average price target is 8.82% above its recent price level and a downside to the estimated low will see the stock lose -22.5% over that period. But an upside of 20.97% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $555.00.
Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 30 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 16 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 13,773 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 14 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 23,732 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in Ulta Beauty Inc are Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, Vanguard 500 Index Fund, and Vanguard Mid Cap Index Fund. Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF owns 1.54 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $656.58 million. The company bought an additional 1904.0 shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 3.13% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard 500 Index Fund bought 5408.0 shares to see its total holdings expand to 1.2 million shares valued at over $512.16 million and representing 2.44% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard Mid Cap Index Fund bought 2611.0 shares to bring its total holdings to over 1.12 million shares at a value of $476.14 million. Vanguard Mid Cap Index Fund now owns shares totaling to 2.27% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of Ulta Beauty Inc (NASDAQ: ULTA) opened at $487.73, up $0.89 from a prior closing price of $486.84. However, the script later moved the day high at 491.65, up 0.65%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of 2.62% and 22.67% over the past three months. ULTA shares are trading 4.46% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance up to 5.71% higher. It has a 12-month low price of $368.02 and touched a high of $556.60 over the same period. ULTA has an average intraday trading volume of 782.53K shares. The stock is trading above its simple moving averages at the SMA20, SMA50, and SMA200, as the current price level is off by 1.67%, 14.45%, and 7.97% respectively.
Institutional ownership of Ulta Beauty Inc (NASDAQ: ULTA) shares accounts for 94.35% of the company’s 50.36M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 46.68%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 47.56% and 36.08% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $23.79B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 1.34. The stock’s trailing 12-month PE ratio is 19.88, while the earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at $24.65. The company has a PEG of 3.03 and a Quick Ratio of 0.26 with the debt-to-equity ratio at 1.04. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 1.27% over the week and 1.85% over the month.
Analysts forecast that Ulta Beauty Inc (ULTA) will achieve an EPS of $7.51 for the current quarter, $7.13 for the next quarter and $26.99 for 2025. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is $7.17 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $7.7. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was $6.68 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to increase by 5.93%, and 5.96% over the next financial year. EPS should shrink at an annualized rate of 6.57% over the next five years, compared to 21.79% over the past 5-year period.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 30 brokerage firm advisors rate Ulta Beauty Inc (ULTA) as a “Moderate Buy” at a consensus score of 2.00. Specifically, 15 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 10 of the 30 advise that investors “hold,” and 1 rated it as a “Sell.”
Looking at the support for the ULTA, a number of firms have released research notes about the stock. Evercore ISI stated their Outperform rating for the stock in a research note on November 07, 2023, with the firm’s price target at $460.
