Short Interest in Ulta Beauty, Inc. (NASDAQ:ULTA) Rises By 19.4%

Ulta Beauty, Inc. (NASDAQ:ULTA) was the target of a significant growth in short interest during the month of October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 2,460,000 shares, a growth of 19.4% from the October 15th total of 2,060,000 shares. Currently, 5.2% of the shares of the stock are short sold. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 1,300,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 1.9 days.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities research analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Evercore ISI cut their price objective on shares of Ulta Beauty from $500.00 to $430.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, August 26th. The Goldman Sachs Group cut their price objective on shares of Ulta Beauty from $475.00 to $412.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, August 12th. UBS Group cut their price objective on shares of Ulta Beauty from $550.00 to $505.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, August 30th. Stifel Nicolaus raised their price objective on shares of Ulta Beauty from $385.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 17th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets set a $385.00 price objective on shares of Ulta Beauty in a research report on Thursday, October 17th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have given a hold rating and twelve have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $420.71.

Ulta Beauty Stock Performance

NASDAQ ULTA opened at $365.17 on Friday. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $380.11 and a 200-day simple moving average of $379.67. Ulta Beauty has a one year low of $318.17 and a one year high of $574.76. The firm has a market cap of $17.21 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 14.65, a PEG ratio of 2.20 and a beta of 1.33.

Ulta Beauty (NASDAQ:ULTA) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 29th. The specialty retailer reported $5.30 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $5.47 by ($0.17). Ulta Beauty had a net margin of 10.68% and a return on equity of 54.02%. The business had revenue of $2.55 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.61 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $6.02 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up .9% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities analysts predict that Ulta Beauty will post 23.07 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Choreo LLC lifted its stake in Ulta Beauty by 71.7% in the second quarter. Choreo LLC now owns 2,868 shares of the specialty retailer’s stock worth $1,103,000 after acquiring an additional 1,198 shares during the last quarter. Susquehanna Fundamental Investments LLC purchased a new position in Ulta Beauty in the second quarter worth approximately $19,136,000. Whittier Trust Co. of Nevada Inc. lifted its stake in Ulta Beauty by 5.3% in the second quarter. Whittier Trust Co. of Nevada Inc. now owns 2,778 shares of the specialty retailer’s stock worth $1,072,000 after acquiring an additional 139 shares during the last quarter. Jensen Investment Management Inc. lifted its stake in Ulta Beauty by 17.9% in the third quarter. Jensen Investment Management Inc. now owns 11,330 shares of the specialty retailer’s stock worth $4,409,000 after acquiring an additional 1,720 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Distillate Capital Partners LLC purchased a new position in Ulta Beauty in the second quarter worth approximately $14,665,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors 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.