conference call exchange

Parts a) through c) use the analyst report from Piper Sandler:

1. Security or financial analysts employed at brokerage houses are typically assigned to follow particular firms within an industry. Review the analyst report from Piper Sandler included in the case and describe the type or categories of information that are included in the report.

2. What information in the analyst report do you think would be most useful to investors? Be specific about the information and why you think it would be useful. Discuss at least two types of information in your answer.

3. Discuss any link you see between the new information in the analysts reports and both the Q2 2023 earnings announcement detail and the discussion in the conference call.

Consensus analyst forecast information:

4. Stock markets are constantly updating expectations of a companys performance. In that vein, a companys stock price prior to an earnings announcement captures an expectation of the valuation impact of the news that will be released in the announcement. Much of markets expectation is formed by a consensus analyst forecast.

a. Describe what is meant by the term consensus analyst forecast?

b. Based on the Barrons article Ulta Posts a Beat-and-Raise Quarter. It Will 'Continue to Outperform Peers.following Ultas earnings release (article dated August 25, 2023), how did the actual quarterly revenues and earnings per sharecompare with the analyst consensus forecasts? Compute the percentage by which the actual Ultas revenues and earnings per sharediffered from the analysts expectation. Show your calculations.

Parts 5) and 6) explore the stock price reaction to Ultas Q2 earnings release. Using Yahoo! Finance or another website with stock market price information, obtain Ultas (NadaqGS: ULTA) closing stock price the day before, t-1, (Wednesday, 8/23), the day of, t, (Thursday, 8/24) and the day after, t+1, (Friday, 8/25) the earnings information was released.

5. Describe the stock market reaction to the information by computing the percentage change in price over this 2 day period (both from t-1 to t and from t to t+1 where t is the announcement day). Be sure to show the details of your calculation and note whether the the stock price change is a decrease or increase.

From Day_t-1 to Day_t:

From Day_t to Day_t+1:

Overall, from Day_t-1 to Day_t+1:

6.Are you surprised by the size and direction of the market reaction over this 2-day period based on the information in the earnings release? Discuss why or why not.