Home Depot Q2 earnings: ‘higher rates have been a positive for HD’

Home Depot Inc (NYSE: HD) says its sales are likely to take a hit this year – but its shares are still in the green at writing.

Home Depot reiterates full-year guidance

The home improvement retailer cautioned this morning that spending on big-ticket items was still under pressure.

To that end, it expects comparable sales to be down between 2.0% and 5.0% in its fiscal 2023. Earnings on a per-share basis are also expected to slide by up to 13%, as per the press release. According to Brian Nagel of Oppenheimer:

Home Depot shares are currently up 5.0% versus the start of the year.

Why is Home Depot stock up today?

Shares of the New York listed firm are keeping resilient today partly because the management announced a $15 billion share repurchase programme. On CNBC’s “Squawk Box”, the Oppenheimer analyst also said:

Nagel’s outperform rating on shares of Home Depot comes with a price target of $360 that suggests about a 9.0% upside from here.

HD inched up on Tuesday also because the multinational reported market-beating results for its fiscal second quarter.

Notable figures in Home Depot Q2 earnings report

• Earned $4.66 billion versus the year ago $5.17 billion
• Per-share earnings also declined from $5.05 to $4.65
• Sales slipped 2.0% year-on-year to $42.92 billion
• Consensus was $4.45 a share on $42.19 billion in sales

A 2.0% decline in comparable sales in the recently concluded quarter was also less than expected. Oppenheimer’s Nagel concluded: