After several weeks of range-bound movement, shares in L'Oréal could enter into a new clear trend. The exit out of the current trading range could be the signal for a return of volatility.
Strengths
● The group's high margin levels account for strong profits.
● Thanks to a sound financial situation, the firm has significant leeway for investment.
● There is high visibility into the group's activities for the coming years. Outlooks on future revenues from analysts covering the equity remain similar. Such hardly dispersed estimates support highly predictable sales for the current and upcoming fiscal years.
● Within the weekly time frame the stock shows a bullish technical configuration above the support level at 251.9 EUR
Weaknesses
● Stock prices approach a strong long-term resistance in weekly data at EUR 290.3.
● The group usually releases earnings worse than estimated.
● The company's enterprise value to sales, at 5.45 times its current sales, is high.
● With an expected P/E ratio at 42.55 and 35.51 respectively for both the current and next fiscal years, the company operates with high earnings multiples.
● For the last four months, the sales outlook for the coming years has been revised downwards. No recovery of the group's activities is yet foreseen.
● For the last twelve months, sales expectations have been significantly downgraded, which means that less important sales volumes are expected for the current fiscal year over the previous period.
L'Oréal is the world leading cosmetic group. The group offers skincare products (39.9% of sales), makeup products (19.7%), haircare products (15.4%), fragrances (12.6%), hair colouring products (8.3%) and other (4,1%). Net sales break down by family of products as follows:
- consumer cosmetics (36.9%): L'Oréal Paris, Garnier, Maybelline New York, NYX Professional Makeup, Essie Niely, Dark and Lovely, Mixa, MG and Carol's Daughter brands;
- luxury cosmetics (36.2%): Lancôme, Kiehl's, Giorgio Armani Beauty, Yves Saint Laurent Beauté, Biotherm, Helena Rubinstein, Shu Uemura, IT Cosmetics, Urban Decay, Ralph Lauren, Mugler, Viktor&Rolf, Valentino, Azzaro, Prada, Takami, A?sop, etc.;
- active cosmetics (15,6%): La Roche-Posay, Vichy, CeraVe, SkinCeuticals, Skinbetter Science, etc.;
- professional products (11,3%): L'Oréal Professionnel, Kérastase, Redken, Matrix and PureOlogy brands.
Products are marketed through mass distribution and distance selling, selective distribution, hair salons and pharmacies.
At the end of 2023, L'Oréal has 37 production sites worldwide.
Net sales are distributed geographically as follows: Europe (31.6%), North America (27%), North Asia (25.9%), Asia/Pacific/Middle East/Africa (8.4%) and Latin America (7.1%).
L'ORÉAL 
