estée lauder is in the beauty business—and its stock is starting to look like a beautiful buy it has been anything but so far this year estée lauder stock ticker el has fallen 34 to a recent 245 in 2022 worse than the sp 500 index’s 20 drop for the new york–based maker of highend beauty and cosmetics products the problem isn’t limited to general concerns about inflation interestrate increases and a possible collapse in spending that would accompany a recession it’s also about china where it gets a third of its sales but which has yet to fully reopen its economy because of covid19