5 companies · median 20 of 36 checks · prices as of 2026-10-23
Specialty retail stocks.
Sorted by how many checks each one passes. Sort by any column to see who is cheapest, who is growing, or who has the strongest balance sheet - and how that compares with what is normal for the industry.
Ranked by checks passed
5 companies in this sector→The specialty retailers we cover are not one trade: Ulta Beauty (ULTA) passes 27 of its 36 checks and Wayfair (W) passes 13, with a median of 20.
→AMZN, CVS, ULTA are 99% of the $2.84T we cover here, so a sector average says more about them than about the rest.
| Save | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Ulta BeautyULTAThe largest US beauty retailer, from mass brands to prestige, with salons in store.Report | -1.7% | +20.2% | 3 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 6 | 27/36 | |
 ChewyCHWYSells pet food and supplies online, most of it on subscription.Report | -1.8% | -39.4% | 4 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 22/36 | |
 AmazonAMZNRuns the largest US online store and, more profitably, the AWS cloud.Report | -0.9% | +13.8% | 2 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 20/36 | |
 CVS HealthCVSRuns CVS pharmacies, the Aetna health insurer and a large pharmacy-benefit manager.Report | -1.1% | +18.4% | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 20/36 | |
 WayfairWSells furniture and home goods online, shipped from suppliers' warehouses.Report | -0.9% | +38.0% | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 6 | 13/36 |
The filings behind this table close between 2026-06-30 and 2026-08-02, because these companies do not share a fiscal calendar; prices are the close of 2026-10-23. Each name links to its full report; every score is a count of pass-or-fail checks read from that company's own filings.
Where the sector falls short
median score per axis→Value is where the specialty retailers we cover come up short most often, at a median of 3 of 6, while Growth runs at 4.
| Value | ●●●○○○ | 3 of 6 |
| Growth | ●●●●○○ | 4 of 6 |
| Quality | ●●●●○○ | 4 of 6 |
| Financial health | ●●●○○○ | 3 of 6 |
| Shareholder returns | ●●●○○○ | 3 of 6 |
| Trend | ●●●●○○ | 4 of 6 |
What a normal margin looks like here
sector percentiles · 47 filers→Gross margin clusters among specialty retailers, from 29% to 50% across the middle of the field, with a midpoint of 34% measured over 47 filers.
| Metric | Bottom third | Midpoint | Top third |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gross margin n=47 | 29.4% | 34.3% | 50.3% |
| Operating margin n=58 | -3.1% | 1.0% | 5.0% |
| Net margin n=59 | -2.6% | 0.6% | 4.8% |
| Return on equity n=44 | -13.7% | 2.8% | 15.3% |
Who grows, and who keeps it
every company in the industry→AMZN, CVS, CHWY, ULTA do both: growing faster than this industry's middle and keeping more of each sale than it does. The industry's middle is 4% growth on a 1% margin.
A year of price
not a fact about the business→4 of 5 are up over twelve months and the median move is +18.4% - Wayfair (W) at +38.0% against Chewy (CHWY) at -39.4%. Price is not a fact about a business, and the Trend chapter of each report says what it is measured on.