Swiss National Bank Cuts Stock Holdings in Ulta Beauty, Inc. (NASDAQ:ULTA)

Swiss National Bank reduced its stake in shares of Ulta Beauty, Inc. (NASDAQ:ULTA) by 0.9% during the third quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 141,600 shares of the specialty retailer’s stock after selling 1,300 shares during the quarter. Swiss National Bank’s holdings in Ulta Beauty were worth $55,099,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other large investors have also recently modified their holdings of ULTA. International Assets Investment Management LLC grew its position in Ulta Beauty by 180,713.0% during the 3rd quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 1,238,569 shares of the specialty retailer’s stock worth $481,952,000 after acquiring an additional 1,237,884 shares during the last quarter. Hsbc Holdings PLC boosted its stake in shares of Ulta Beauty by 87.3% during the second quarter. Hsbc Holdings PLC now owns 337,882 shares of the specialty retailer’s stock valued at $130,380,000 after purchasing an additional 157,497 shares during the period. Boston Partners grew its holdings in shares of Ulta Beauty by 47.7% in the first quarter. Boston Partners now owns 476,027 shares of the specialty retailer’s stock worth $246,862,000 after purchasing an additional 153,727 shares during the last quarter. Swedbank AB increased its stake in shares of Ulta Beauty by 107.0% in the second quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 240,191 shares of the specialty retailer’s stock worth $92,683,000 after buying an additional 124,164 shares during the period. Finally, TD Asset Management Inc raised its holdings in Ulta Beauty by 14.1% during the 2nd quarter. TD Asset Management Inc now owns 620,793 shares of the specialty retailer’s stock valued at $239,545,000 after buying an additional 76,721 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 90.39% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms have issued reports on ULTA. UBS Group decreased their price objective on shares of Ulta Beauty from $550.00 to $505.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, August 30th. Wells Fargo & Company reduced their price target on Ulta Beauty from $325.00 to $300.00 and set an “underweight” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, August 30th. BMO Capital Markets set a $385.00 price objective on Ulta Beauty in a report on Thursday, October 17th. Raymond James reduced their target price on Ulta Beauty from $450.00 to $440.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, October 14th. Finally, Barclays raised their price target on Ulta Beauty from $328.00 to $335.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, August 30th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have issued a hold rating and twelve have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $420.71.

Ulta Beauty Trading Down 3.2 %

NASDAQ ULTA opened at $342.17 on Wednesday. Ulta Beauty, Inc. has a 12 month low of $318.17 and a 12 month high of $574.76. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $378.87 and its 200-day moving average price is $378.32. The stock has a market cap of $16.12 billion, a P/E ratio of 13.73, a P/E/G ratio of 2.10 and a beta of 1.33.

Ulta Beauty (NASDAQ:ULTA) last released its quarterly earnings data 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). The firm had revenue of $2.55 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.61 billion. Ulta Beauty had a net margin of 10.68% and a return on equity of 54.02%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up .9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $6.02 earnings per share. As a group, analysts forecast that Ulta Beauty, Inc. will post 23.07 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

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.