The Daily Beat - December 23, 2025 📈

There were no S&P 500 earnings reactions on Monday, but we want to tell you about one of our favorite retail stocks in the market.

Over the past few weeks, retail has quietly become one of the strongest pockets of the market.

We wrote about Lululemon $LULU last week as a classic bearish-to-bullish reversal, and Ulta Beauty $ULTA fits that same playbook almost perfectly. 

This is a $27 billion specialty retailer that just did exactly what leadership stocks are supposed to do at major turning points: it delivered a decisive earnings beat, the market rewarded it immediately, and price is now confirming that something bigger is happening beneath the surface.

In their latest report, revenue jumped nearly 13% year-over-year, comparable sales accelerated to 6.3%, and gross margins expanded to over 40% as inventory discipline improved and shrink declined. 

That combination matters... 

It tells us demand is healthy, execution is tightening, and the company isn’t buying growth through promotions. 

Management also raised full-year guidance, lifting expected sales to roughly $12.3B and boosting EPS expectations into the $25.20–$25.50 range. 

That kind of guidance raise is a signal that the internal data looks better than what the market was pricing in.

What really stands out is how the company continues to separate itself from competitors. 

The moat here isn’t just brand assortment, it’s the ecosystem. 

Ulta’s scale, loyalty program, exclusive brand partnerships, and ability to drive traffic across mass and prestige categories give it leverage that few retailers can replicate. 

Add in steady store growth, international optionality through Space NK, and disciplined capital returns via aggressive share repurchases, and you have a business that’s quietly compounding while others are still fighting margin compression. 

This is why investors are gravitating toward ULTA rather than chasing weaker specialty names.

The market’s response to that story has been unambiguous.

After reporting on December 4th, the stock exploded more than 12.5% in the following session, one of the strongest post-earnings reactions Ulta has seen in years. 

That surge wasn’t a one-day wonder either... 

Price has continued to grind higher, closing Monday at a fresh all-time high and resolving a multi-week consolidation that formed after the earnings gap. 

When a stock makes new highs after digesting a significant earnings reaction, it indicates that institutions are using strength to add exposure rather than exit it.

From a technical perspective, this is precisely how bullish continuation patterns are supposed to resolve. 

Ulta spent years chopping sideways while fundamentals reset, and now price has pushed through overhead supply that rejected it multiple times in prior cycles. 

Momentum is accelerating, and trend direction across multiple timeframes is pointing higher. In that environment, the path of least resistance is clearly higher.

This is fusion analysis at its best. 

The fundamentals say Ulta is executing, defending its moat, and growing profitably again. 

The technicals say buyers are firmly in control and willing to pay new highs for that story. 

When those two line up at the same time, especially in a sector that’s already attracting fresh capital, it’s usually not the end of the move. It’s the beginning.

Happy Technical Tuesday

-The Beat Team