Coverage spread: 3 sources — 3 center
Lean ratings via AllSides / Media Bias-Fact-Check. How this works.
Where they agree
- Home Depot beat Wall Street’s revenue and earnings expectations for the fiscal second quarter, with adjusted EPS of $4.92 and revenue of $47.86 billion.
- Comparable sales rose 1.7% globally, driven by customers taking on smaller home-improvement projects rather than large renovations.
- The company reaffirmed rather than raised its full-year guidance, citing ongoing uncertainty tied to a sluggish, “frozen” housing market and high mortgage rates.
- Big-ticket projects remained weak as customers stayed cautious about financing costs and broader economic conditions.
Where they differ
- CNBC focuses on CFO Richard McPhail’s direct commentary and quotes about customer hesitancy, tariff refunds ($730 million received) and “share gain” messaging.
- Fortune emphasizes housing-market data points — record median home prices ($434,100), falling existing home sales, and analyst Neil Saunders’ breakdown of small-project growth (+1.5%) versus big-ticket decline (-2.1%).
- Fortune reports a U.S.-specific comparable sales figure of 1.3%, distinct from the 1.7% global figure that CNBC cites as the headline number.
- MarketWatch’s excerpt is brief and only flags the core tension of rising revenue alongside customers avoiding larger projects, without the detailed figures the other two outlets provide.
Home Depot reported fiscal second-quarter results on Tuesday that beat Wall Street’s expectations on both revenue and profit, and the company reaffirmed its full-year guidance rather than raising it, citing what its chief financial officer called “frozen housing market conditions.” Sales grew as customers took on smaller home projects, but big-ticket renovations remained scarce as high mortgage rates and housing costs kept buyers cautious.
What were the actual numbers?
Home Depot posted net income of $4.77 billion, or $4.79 per share, for the quarter ended Aug. 2, up from $4.55 billion, or $4.58 per share, a year earlier. Excluding one-time items, adjusted earnings came to $4.92 per share, beating the $4.73 per share analysts had forecast, according to Fortune’s FactSet survey. Revenue rose 5.7% to $47.86 billion, ahead of the roughly $47.24 billion Wall Street expected. Comparable sales — a measure of sales at stores open at least a year — climbed 1.7% globally, topping the 0.9% increase analysts had projected, according to CNBC. In the U.S. specifically, comparable sales rose 1.3%, Fortune reported. CFO Richard McPhail said the 1.7% figure was the company’s best comparable-sales performance since the third quarter of fiscal 2022.
Why did sales rise even though customers are avoiding big projects?
Shoppers spent more per visit even though they visited less often. Fortune reported that customer transactions fell 1% during the quarter, but average spending per receipt rose to $92.50 from $90.01 a year earlier. Neil Saunders, managing director at GlobalData, told Fortune that smaller home projects increased 1.5% over the prior year — a modest number, he said, but a meaningful shift from the declines of recent periods. Larger, big-ticket projects, however, fell 2.1% compared with a year earlier, which Saunders attributed largely to financing worries and depressed home-moving activity, since many bigger renovations get funded through home equity borrowing that has grown far more expensive than the near-4%-to-5% rates common earlier this decade.
What did Home Depot’s CFO say about customers?
McPhail described Home Depot’s customer base as “a healthy cohort” that has the financial means to spend but is holding back. He told CNBC that customers say they’re worried about inflation, fuel costs and general economic uncertainty, and that hesitancy grows “as the project gets bigger.” He said the company saw “broad engagement” across its pro (professional contractor) and do-it-yourself businesses alike, and characterized the quarter’s story as one of “share gain” — Home Depot picking up market share even as the broader housing sector stays sluggish.
Why is the housing market still described as “frozen”?
The U.S. housing slump traces back to 2022, when mortgage rates began rising from the historic lows that had fueled a buying frenzy in the early part of the decade. Fortune noted that existing home sales fell 1.7% in July from June, according to the National Association of Realtors, even as home prices hit a record for the month — a median of $434,100, up 2% from a year earlier. Long-term mortgage rates ticked down slightly for the first time in six weeks but remain elevated compared with a year ago. That combination — record prices and high borrowing costs — has kept many prospective buyers on the sidelines and suppressed the home turnover that typically drives bigger renovation spending.
What role did tariff refunds play?
Home Depot’s reaffirmed guidance factors in tariff refunds that the company says will help offset unexpected costs tied to fuel, energy and other product inputs. McPhail told analysts the company received $730 million in tariff refunds during the quarter — most of what it expects to receive in total — and used $685 million of that to lower its cost of goods sold, with the remaining $45 million held in inventory. He said the refunds are helping the retailer “maintain value” for customers despite cost pressures elsewhere.
What is Home Depot forecasting for the rest of the year?
The company kept its fiscal 2026 guidance unchanged, projecting total sales growth of 2.5% to 4.5% and an operating margin between 12.4% and 12.6%. McPhail said the decision to reaffirm rather than raise guidance reflects continued uncertainty in the broader market, even as the company’s own performance beat expectations.
Sources
Featured photo: Dillan Payne via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)