L'Oreal shares collapsed by 8% after a "vague" forecast. What worried investors?
JPMorgan Chase, UBS and Bernstein recommend not to buy new, but also not to sell existing L'Oreal shares

Quotes of the French cosmetics giant L'Oreal collapsed after the publication of the financial report for the third quarter. The company reported weaker-than-expected quarterly sales and did not give investors any guidance on how it will be able to overtake its competitors in the future.
Details
L'Oreal shares fell 8% in the first minutes of trading in Paris on Oct. 22, but then slowed the pace of decline to about -6.5%. If quotes do not recover, the drop at the end of the trading day could be the deepest for the company since February 2024, Reuters noted.
On the evening of October 21, L'Oreal reported third-quarter sales of €10.33 billion - up 4.2% from a year ago, but worse than the Visible Alpha consensus forecast of 4.9% growth. While L'Oreal said its key Chinese market grew for the first time in two years and the U.S. market is recovering, sales growth in both North America and Latin America fell short of forecasts, Reuters noted.
What the analysts are saying
L'Oreal's quarterly results in all segments except professional products fell short of market expectations, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing RBC. "The magnitude of the improvements was disappointing," the bank's analysts said. Improvements in North Asia failed to offset weak performance in the New World, they said.
"While L'Oreal claims to be ahead of the beauty industry as a whole, it is not at all clear where exactly this outperformance manifests itself," the Barclays analysts wrote. They pointed out that L'Oreal's comparable sales growth since the start of 2025 has been 3.4 percent - and that this is in line with CEO Nicolas Hieronymus' estimate for the global market, Reuters reported.
Hieronymus' comments on annual growth were also cautious, estimating it would be "quite close" to the 4% he forecast earlier this year. The L'Oreal chief said he was "keeping his fingers crossed" in anticipation of the New Year's Eve holiday season in America and Europe, as well as China's "11.11" sales festival.
"Yesterday's conference call left a lot to be desired: the outlook for the beauty market has become even dimmer," Barclays noted.
What Wall Street thinks of the stock
According to FactSet, the consensus rating on L'Oreal shares has remained neutral (Hold) in recent months. After the publication of quarterly reports, JPMorgan Chase, UBS and Bernstein reiterated their recommendations to hold the company's securities and left their target price on them unchanged.
This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor