Ulta Beauty Inc. $ULTA Shares Bought by Fjarde AP Fonden Fourth Swedish National Pension Fund

Fjarde AP Fonden Fourth Swedish National Pension Fund boosted its stake in shares of Ulta Beauty Inc. (NASDAQ:ULTA) by 12.4% in the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 13,602 shares of the specialty retailer’s stock after buying an additional 1,500 shares during the quarter. Fjarde AP Fonden Fourth Swedish National Pension Fund’s holdings in Ulta Beauty were worth $6,363,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the stock. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD lifted its holdings in shares of Ulta Beauty by 128.2% in the 1st quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 1,225,023 shares of the specialty retailer’s stock worth $449,021,000 after acquiring an additional 688,267 shares during the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted its stake in Ulta Beauty by 81.7% during the first quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 913,600 shares of the specialty retailer’s stock worth $334,871,000 after purchasing an additional 410,900 shares in the last quarter. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. lifted its stake in Ulta Beauty by 64.8% during the first quarter. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. now owns 931,557 shares of the specialty retailer’s stock worth $341,453,000 after purchasing an additional 366,147 shares in the last quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. boosted its position in shares of Ulta Beauty by 5,117.0% during the first quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 220,312 shares of the specialty retailer’s stock worth $80,753,000 after buying an additional 216,089 shares during the period. Finally, AQR Capital Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Ulta Beauty by 237.7% in the first quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 270,420 shares of the specialty retailer’s stock valued at $96,674,000 after buying an additional 190,353 shares in the last quarter. 90.39% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts recently issued reports on the company. Oppenheimer boosted their price objective on Ulta Beauty from $510.00 to $600.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 12th. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “hold (c)” rating on shares of Ulta Beauty in a research note on Wednesday, October 8th. Evercore ISI raised their price objective on shares of Ulta Beauty from $595.00 to $640.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, August 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective on shares of Ulta Beauty from $525.00 to $600.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, August 22nd. Finally, Argus upgraded shares of Ulta Beauty from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $570.00 target price on the stock in a report on Thursday, September 25th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirteen have assigned a Buy rating, twelve have assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $550.38.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, Director Mike C. Smith sold 500 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, September 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $528.43, for a total value of $264,215.00. Following the transaction, the director owned 2,263 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,195,837.09. This represents a 18.10% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. 0.17% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Ulta Beauty Stock Performance

ULTA stock opened at $506.07 on Thursday. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $531.45 and its 200 day moving average price is $480.61. The firm has a market capitalization of $22.69 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.40, a PEG ratio of 2.86 and a beta of 1.08. Ulta Beauty Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $309.01 and a fifty-two week high of $572.23.

Ulta Beauty (NASDAQ:ULTA) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 28th. The specialty retailer reported $5.78 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $5.03 by $0.75. Ulta Beauty had a net margin of 10.31% and a return on equity of 48.78%. The company had revenue of $2.79 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.66 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $5.30 EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 9.3% on a year-over-year basis. Equities analysts forecast that Ulta Beauty Inc. will post 23.96 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Ulta Beauty Profile

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.