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Fly News Breaks for January 8, 2019
EL
Jan 8, 2019 | 21:47 EDT
Goldman Sachs analyst Jason English downgraded Estee Lauder to Sell and lowered his price target for the shares to $116 from $171. The analyst points out that Estee Lauder shares have appreciated at roughly five times the rate of his firm's Staples index over the past two years. The stock is now trading at an 80% premium to the S&P 500 Index, which is 20 points higher than its five-year average, English tells investors in a research note. Further, he thinks Estee Lauder is at risk of realizing a "significant deceleration" to its organic sales growth, causing the company's "market-relative premium to fade as growth slows down." The analyst believes China, which has driven the company's sales growth over the past two years, will be the reason behind its organic sales growth deceleration in the quarters ahead.