Retail

What to Expect From Home Depot Earnings

Chris Lange

Published: November 14, 2016 11:50 am

Last Updated: January 12, 2020 5:50 pm

Home Depot Inc. (NYSE: HD) is scheduled to report its fiscal third-quarter financial results before the markets open on Tuesday. The consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters are $1.58 in earnings per share (EPS) and $23.05 billion in revenue. The same period of last year reportedly had EPS of $1.36 and $21.82 billion in revenue.

Usually, this stock is the top pick in the home improvement retail category, but 2016 has not been the year for this industry. Even the most recent earnings report saw investors muted or down for Home Depot.

The company’s fiscal second quarter is generally supposed to be the strongest one for home improvement sales. However despite meeting results for the previous quarter, investors were largely unimpressed. Keep in mind that these results were also the highest quarterly sales and net earnings results in company history, but it’s seemingly hard to believe considering the reaction. Analysts took a closer look at this time and they were more or less mixed.

A few analysts weighed in on Home Depot ahead of the earnings report:

• Macquarie reiterated a Buy rating.
• Piper Jaffray has a Neutral rating with a $121 price target.
• Morgan Stanley has a Hold rating with a $145 price target.
• Argus reiterated a Hold rating with a $154 price target.
• Jefferies reiterated a Buy rating.
• RBC Capital Markets reiterated an Outperform rating with a $155 price target.
• Wedbush has an Outperform rating with a $145 price target.

So far in 2016, Home Depot has underperformed the broad markets, with the stock down 2%. Over the past 52 weeks, the stock is up nearly 7%.

Shares of Home Depot were down 0.5% at $129.18 on Monday, with a consensus analyst price target of $147.49 and a 52-week trading range of $109.62 to $139.00.