Ulta Beauty Stock (ULTA) Crashes 10% on Soaring Costs, Weak Forecast; Eyes TikTok Launch

Shares in Ulta Beauty ULTA -10.20% ▼ plunged about 10% early Friday as analysts trimmed their price targets on the U.S. beauty retailer following its mixed fourth-quarter results. The Illinois-based company projected a below-consensus sales forecast for fiscal 2026 despite growing its sales in fiscal 2025 amid soaring expenses.

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During the quarterly period that ended on January 31, the beauty retailer saw its adjusted earnings per share fall by 5% to $8.01, slightly below the Wall Street consensus of $8.03. However, its net sales jumped about 12% year-over-year to $3.9 billion, exceeding analysts’ estimate of $3.80 billion.

In addition, Ulta Beauty’s comparable sales — sales from stores opened for at least a year during the quarter — climbed 5.8%. For the full year, adjusted EPS rose by 1.2% to $25.64, net sales expanded by 9.7% to $12.4 billion, and comparable sales climbed by 5.4%.

The rise in comparable sales was fueled by an increase in average ticket and transactions. Moreover, Ulta Beauty’s gross profit for the quarter and full-year rose about 11% and 10% to $1.5 billion and $4.8 billion, respectively.

However, higher selling, general, and administrative (SG&A) expenses left the retailer’s margin roughly flat in the quarter: Ulta Beauty kept 38.1 cents per dollar of net sales in the quarter compared to 38.2 cents a year ago.

SG&A expenses rose by 17.4% to $3.3 billion at the end of the fiscal year. The company blamed the higher costs on more spending on incentive compensation, store payroll, and corporate overhead. The latter is due to strategic enterprise investments, the company said.

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