5 Best Hair Care Stocks To Buy Now

3. Ulta Beauty, Inc. (NASDAQ:ULTA)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 54

Ulta Beauty, Inc. (NASDAQ:ULTA) is an Illinois-based retailer of beauty products in the United States. The company offers cosmetics, fragrances, skincare and haircare products, bath and body products, and salon styling tools. It is one of the best hair care stocks to monitor. For the third quarter, Ulta Beauty, Inc. (NASDAQ:ULTA) reported $5.34 in earnings per share alongside $2.3 billion in revenue, topping earnings expectations and raising sales forecasts. 

On December 5, Barclays analyst Adrienne Yih raised the firm’s price target on Ulta Beauty, Inc. (NASDAQ:ULTA) to $548 from $511 and maintained an Overweight rating on the shares. The Q3 beat showed the company’s “resilience,” the analyst told investors in a research note.

According to Insider Monkey’s third quarter database, 54 hedge funds were bullish on Ulta Beauty, Inc. (NASDAQ:ULTA), compared to 52 funds in the last quarter. Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke, and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital is the biggest stakeholder of the company, with 699,112 shares worth $280.5 million. 

Here is what ClearBridge Large Cap Growth ESG Strategy has to say about Ulta Beauty, Inc. (NASDAQ:ULTA) in its Q2 2022 investor letter:

“After seeding the portfolio with select growth companies in the second half of 2020 and 2021, we have redirected our focus over the last several quarters to risk management. Moves during the second quarter in pursuit of greater stability included reducing consumer discretionary exposure with the sale of omnichannel cosmetics retailer Ulta Beauty (NASDAQ:ULTA).

We exited Ulta as our thesis has largely played out in terms of a post-COVID 19 earnings recovery. Ulta has steadily gained share over the last several years and its partnership with Target (TGT) represents a new avenue to gain customer loyalty. That being said, we are wary about the resilience of the consumer and the impact of labor cost inflation, which could crimp Ulta’s margin expansion in coming quarters. As with recent activity, the sale further reduces our consumer discretionary exposure and helps manage portfolio risk through an ongoing period of volatility.”