What Happened?
Shares of beauty products company Estée Lauder (NYSE:EL) jumped 4% in the morning session after the company announced the launch of an innovative, AI-powered digital experience for its Jo Malone London brand. The new tool, called the Jo Malone London Scent Advisor, was designed to help customers find their ideal fragrance through a conversational online journey. Developed with Google Cloud, this digital experience aimed to recreate the brand's in-store consultation process online. The announcement reinforced the company's focus on fragrance as a key area for strategic growth. This move followed the recent opening of The Estée Lauder Companies’ Fragrance Atelier in Paris, signaling a continued push to speed up its progress in the fast-growing fragrance market.
After the initial pop the shares cooled down to $98.79, up 4.3% from previous close.
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What Is The Market Telling Us
Estée Lauder’s shares are quite volatile and have had 18 moves greater than 5% over the last year. In that context, today’s move indicates the market considers this news meaningful but not something that would fundamentally change its perception of the business.
The biggest move we wrote about over the last year was 10 months ago when the stock dropped 18.2% on the news that the company reported underwhelming fourth-quarter results. Its EBITDA missed significantly, and its EPS guidance for next quarter fell short of Wall Street's estimates. On the other hand, Estée Lauder blew past analysts' EPS expectations this quarter. While revenue also beat analysts' estimates, sales declined year on year. The company unveiled "Beauty Reimagined," a plan to boost sales and profits by cutting costs, speeding up product launches, and expanding into fast-growing markets. As part of its cost optimization efforts, the company plans to eliminate 5,800 to 7,000 jobs. Overall, this was a difficult quarter.
Estée Lauder is up 33.5% since the beginning of the year, and at $98.79 per share, it is trading close to its 52-week high of $102.52 from October 2025. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Estée Lauder’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $402.68.
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