Ulta Beauty Inc vs Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund ETF — how do they compare? Ulta Beauty Inc trades at $542.26 (market cap $24.12B), while Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund ETF trades at $376.74. The key difference: Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund ETF is trading nearer its 52-week high, Ulta Beauty Inc nearer its low. Which is the better fit depends on your goals.
| ULTA | VTI | |
|---|---|---|
Market Cap | $24.12B | — |
Sector | Consumer Cyclical | — |
52-Week High | $706.82 | $384.30 |
52-Week Low | $450.75 | $311.68 |
Enterprise Value | $26.43B | — |
Signals from Pluang's Aura AI — not financial advice
ULTA Beauty trades at $549.23, down 2.64% today, amid mixed signals. The stock shows a bullish technical trend with strong moving averages, while fundamentals reveal steady revenue growth to $11.30B in 2025, though net income margin has softened to 9.34%. Recent Q2 2026 earnings beat expectations, and the company raised full-year guidance, yet some segments like cosmetics showed flat performance.
The outlook is cautiously optimistic, with a consensus price target of $653.14 implying significant upside. Key opportunities include digital growth and AI integration potential, but risks involve competitive pressures and reliance on discretionary consumer spending. Analyst sentiment remains predominantly bullish, supporting a favorable risk-reward profile for long-term investors.
VTI trades at $377.60, down 0.56% with neutral technical signals. The ETF maintains broad U.S. market exposure across 3,515 stocks with a minimal 0.03% expense ratio. Recent institutional activity includes DMC Group's $794,000 investment in Q2 2026, while technical indicators show support at $375 and resistance at $379.
Long-term outlook remains positive given historical 10% annual market returns, though concentration risk exists with top ten holdings representing one-third of assets. Market sentiment favors VTI for diversification amid potential volatility, with analysts highlighting its core portfolio role for 20-year horizons.
Trailing returns across standard periods
Latest headlines on both assets
With more than 1,300 stores and a partnership with Target, Ulta Beauty is the largest specialized beauty retailer in the U.S. The firm offers makeup (43% of 2021 sales), fragrances, skin care, and hair care products (20% of 2021 sales), and bath and body items. Ulta offers private-label products and merchandise from more than 500 vendors. It also offers salon services, including hair, makeup, skin, and brow services, in all stores. Most Ulta stores are approximately 10,000 square feet and are in suburban strip centers. Ulta was founded in 1990 and is based in Bolingbrook, Illinois.
Read more on ULTA →The fund employs an indexing investment approach designed to track the performance of the index, which represents approximately 100% of the investable US stock market and includes large-, mid-, small-, and micro-cap stocks. It invests by sampling the index, meaning that it holds a broadly diversified collection of securities that, in the aggregate, approximates the full index in terms of key characteristics.
Read more on VTI →