This week will mark perhaps the beginning of the end of the corporate earnings season. We still have many earnings coming out, particularly in retail. Dow Jones Industrial Average component Home Depot Inc. (NYSE: HD) and rival Lowe’s Companies Inc. (NYSE: LOW) are on deck to report.
24/7 Wall St. has compiled earnings previews for each company, as well as added color. Consensus estimates are compiled from Thomson Reuters data.
Home Depot Inc. (NYSE: HD) reports on Tuesday morning. The consensus estimates are for $0.99 earnings per share (EPS) and $19.95 billion in revenue, with estimates at $1.44 per share and $23.37 billion for the next quarterly report. Home Depot stock is valued at roughly 17.3 times this year’s expected earnings and 15 times next year’s expected earnings. Shares are down just over 6% so far in 2014, and the dividend yield is much better than that of Lowe’s at 2.4%.
Lowe’s Companies Inc. (NYSE: LOW) reports Wednesday morning. The consensus estimates are $0.60 EPS and $13.85 billion in revenue, with estimates at $1.01 per share and $16.36 billion for the next quarterly report. Lowe’s trades at more than 17 times expected 2014 earnings and about 14.4 times expected 2015 earnings. Its stock is down by about 7.7% year to date, and its dividend lags at 1.6%.
Home Depot shares have fallen about 7.8% from its 52-week high, versus the drop in Lowe’s of almost 13% from its 52-week high.
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The other big differential is in analyst expectations. Home Depot trades at $76.75 with a consensus analyst price target of $89.65, implying perceived upside of almost 17%. The consensus analyst price target of $53.68 for Lowe’s and the share price of $45.40 implies upside of 18%, if the analysts are correct.
The numbers skew slightly better for Home Depot over Lowe’s, if you had to do a backward and forward analysis, but the real issue is that these numbers are so close that they may be a coin toss on any given week. Stay tuned.
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