Canaccord Genuity analysts lowered the price target on ULTA Salon (ULTA) to $522.00 (from $575.00) while maintaining a Buy rating.
The analysts commented: “Ahead of earnings, we are lowering our price target from $575 to $522 as we are cautious around the competitive landscape in beauty and normalization of growth expectations. Although we remain buyers due to compelling valuation at just ~13x the Street’s current EPS estimates, normalization of beauty growth and a competitive prestige environment could lead to lower than expected comps. Ulta spooked the beauty market in early April with commentary noting the beauty category was slowing earlier and faster than expected. We note that the promo environment has held fairly rational in beauty through Memorial Day weekend, which should help keep gross margins in check and could even see some tailwinds in GM as we lap periods that were severely pressured by inventory shrink. We also believe rational promos signals that beauty demand has held up and retailers have yet to start chasing sales with irrational promotions. Commentary around overall US beauty demand from retailers, including Macy’s/Bloomingdales, Dillard’s (NYSE:), Target, Walmart (NYSE:), and also LVMH’s Sephora, has remained positive as well. We note Circana reported US prestige beauty sales were up +9% in 1Q24 while mass sales were up +2%.”
