Home Depot is the world's largest home improvement retailer, with sales of $165 billion for the fiscal year ended February 1, 2026. The company, which is based in Atlanta, sells appliances, tools, paint, lumber, plumbing, electrical, garden, and other home improvement supplies in warehouse-sized stores that average 104,000 enclosed square feet and an additional 24,000 in the outside garden department. About 35% of retail sales came from building materials (electrical, lumber, plumbing), 34% from decor (appliances, flooring, kitchen, bath, paint), and 31% from hardlines (hardware, tools, garden). The company's total selling space is about 243 million square feet. At the end of FY26, Home Depot had 2,360 stores and about 470,000 associates. Approximately 28% of U.S. stores are in California, Florida, and Texas. About 8% of the stores are in Canada, and 6% are in Mexico. The company has approximately 1,200 SRS Distribution branches and 120 HD Supply facilities. The company's recently acquired SMS and GMS businesses which serve professionals in specialty trades that often require support for complex projects. Sales from these businesses represented almost 8% of FY26 revenue. The company's fiscal year ends on the Sunday nearest to January 31. The current fiscal 2027 has 52 weeks.

The Stock Market as Summer Winds Down Chronological summer runs from June 21 to September 21 or thereabouts, but many folks -- students and parents most prominently -- regard summer as the three core months between Memorial Day and Labor Day. 'Wall Street summer' is also on that June-August timeline. This summer is shaping up as above average for investors, but only because August has (so far) saved the day. Since 1980, the S&P 500 has averaged a paltry 1.2% gain across June through September. The ninth month is one of the market's worst, averaging a decline of almost 1%. But even backing September out of the returns, the S&P 500 over 'Wall Street summer' (June through August) has averaged just a 1.9% gain since 1980. In 2026, and with about half of August to go, the S&P 500 has risen 2.7% over Wall Street summer. And that is despite declines of 1.1% in June and 0.1% in July. Prospects for peace between the U.S. and Iran, along with normalization of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, were strongest in June, which has been the worst month of the three core-summer months. Conversely, with tensions rising and tanker traffic slowing to a trickle through the contested waterway, stocks are having their best month in August. When war erupts, it is all-consuming. But war on distant shores eventually lessens its grip as a public preoccupation, and that may be happening this time. The economy and job situation have shown some strains, as we noted last week. But the artificial intelligence (AI) transition will likely keep the broader economy moving higher, even as semiconductor and technology imports suppress the headline GDP number. Stocks have rallied in August due to gobsmacking technology earnings, which has led to yet another revival in the AI trade. The Stock Market in 3Q26 For 3Q26 to date, meaning July through mid-August, the S&P 500 is up 3.8%. The quarter has been bifurcated at the sector level, with growth leadership subject to profit taking in the first three weeks of July but recovering in August amid remarkably strong calendar 2Q26 earnings results. Stocks with defensive, cyclical, rate-sensitive, or inflation-hedge characteristics have had the opposite experience, as a strong start has given way to weaker performance over the six-week span. At midquarter, the best-performing sector has been Energy. In a tumultuous year, Energy soared 36% in 1Q26, retraced 12.6% in 2Q26, and is up 16.0% in 3Q26 to date. Next up is Financial, up 8.5% on the heels of terrific big-bank earnings that kicked off calendar 2Q26 EPS season. In descending order, other sectors that are outperforming the index in 3Q26 are Healthcare, up 5.4%; Communication Services, up 5.4%; and Materials, up 4.8%. Consumer Staples is positive for 3Q-to-date, but with a 3.6% gain that is just behind the S&P 500's 3.8% gain. Also positive for the quarter while lagging the index are Real Estate, up 2.7%; Industrial, up 1.8%; Information Technology, up 1.3%; and Consumer Discretionary, up 0.8%. The third quarter has featured some churn in Information Technology after a 39% surge in 2Q. IT shares were slammed for much of July but have recovered in August. Investors, after a multiyear love affair, now want to hate IT stocks with AI sensitivity. But earnings for IT industry leaders have been exceptional, driving overall EPS growth that has been the best since the pandemic recovery period. The lone sector in the negative column for 3Q26 has been Utilities, down 1.8%. This sector has been punching above its 2% sector weight in recent years amid the decline in interest rates since 2022, investments in power and grid infrastructure to support AI sector build-outs, and climate change-driven third quarters (the prime air-conditioning quarter for most utilities). Those latter two factors are still in place, but war- and tariff-related inflation have pushed interest rates back up and reduced attractiveness of Utility-stock yields as a fixed-income alternative. The Stock Market Year-to-Date The 2026 trading year has seen an uncommon amount of transition in sector leadership. In broad strokes, the first quarter was risk-off and led by inflation-hedge beneficiaries such as Energy and Materials; the second quarter was a risk-on rally, led by Information Technology and Consumer Discretionary; and the third quarter, as described above, has been trickier to categorize, with out-of-favor sectors such as Healthcare and Communication Services delivering top-tier performances. Where does that leave the stock market as summer winds down and the midterm elections come into view? The tag teaming of sector leadership throughout the year means that the leader board as of mid-August shows no clearly dominant theme. Four sectors are doing better than the broad market; two are just behind the index; and five sectors are lagging the market, including two in negative territory. Notably, the two negative sectors on a capital appreciation basis swing to slightly positive on a total return basis (including dividends). In this year of soaring prices for crude oil and all derivatives, Energy is the unsurprising leader, with a year-to-date gain of 38.1% as of August 14, 2026. Information Technology has used its 2Q rally to move into second place, with a 28.0% gain as of mid-August. Materials are up 22.2% year-to-date, buoyed by commodities pricing partly reflecting dollar weakness but mainly related to supply uncertainty and AI demand. The fourth and final sector leading the broad market year-to-date is Industrial, up 14.5%. Unlike past technology inflections such as the cloud, which was mainly software-based, the AI revolution is very much a hardware-intensive transition. All of that hardware needs to reside in cooled racks in power-intensive data centers, and the industrial companies have a huge role in building the infrastructure enabling the AI revolution. Two sectors are almost tracking the market. Real Estate is up 11.9% year-to-date, and Consumer Staples is up 10.8%. Next are Healthcare, up 8.5%, and Financial, up 7.3%. The laggards in 2026-to-date include Utilities, in ninth place, with a 3.8% gain after multiple years of top-tier performance. Consumer Discretionary is down 1.0% in 2026, as too many consumers are just getting by with nothing left over for discretionary spending. Sweeping up the parade is Communication Services, down 4.1%. In this barbell sector, the legacy telcos (Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc.) are in a fight for wireless subscribers in a mature and slow-growing pool. The AI names in this sector (Alphabet Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc.) have lagged on concerns about through-the-roof AI capital spending. Valuations: Reasonable But Not Cheap With just a handful of major retailers and technology companies yet to report, S&P 500 earnings from continuing operations for calendar 2Q26 are up over 50% from 2Q25, according to the tracking firms Bloomberg, FactSet, and Refinitiv. That 50% growth rate includes onetime gains from Alphabet and Amazon.com Inc. totaling more than $150 billion. Even excluding those gains, the blended 2Q26 EPS growth rate is closer to 30% - the second-best growth since 2Q21. Over 85% of companies have surpassed prereporting consensus expectations, well above normal. And the magnitude of the EPS beat -- even after backing out those giant onetime gains -- is well above the long-run average. AI is driving technology earnings growth, but it is not all Magnificent 7. And while AI captures the headlines, an equally important story in this reporting quarter is across-the-board earnings strength, with sectors such as Materials, Energy, Industrial, Financial, and Utilities delivering double-digit EPS growth. Argus President John Eade calculates that stocks appear to be reasonably valued, but they are not bargains. The Argus stock/bond barometer suggests that bonds are currently a better value, though not by a huge margin. The valuation level for stocks as expressed in this model is at the higher end of the normal range, without straying into overvaluation territory. Other measures of valuation show reasonable multiples for stocks, most notably forward P/E. Based on our estimates of S&P 500 earnings from continuing operations for 2026 and 2027, the S&P 500 is trading at a two-year forward multiple of 21.4-times, in line with the trailing-five-year multiple of 20.9-times. At this point in the year, many investors have moved on to valuing the market on 2027 earnings. The S&P 500 is trading at just 19.9-times forward earnings for 2027. Conclusion The two big events facing the market in the remaining four and a half trading months of the year are also the two big uncertainties: the midterm elections and the outcome of the war with Iran. Normally, the president's party would lose Congressional seats in the midterms. But gerrymandering and the president's popularity with the MAGA core could make the election a toss-up. If some kind of resolution is reached in the war with Iran, that too could influence election results. Without predicting either outcome, we can say that investors appear to be paying the most attention to the strength in earnings and the ways in which the rise of agentic AI is broadening out to encompass more and more parts of the economy. That may be enough to sustain or even build on double-digit stock gains in this second and toughest year of the presidential election cycle.

Home Depot is the world's largest home improvement specialty retailer, operating 2,364 warehouse-format stores offering more than 30,000 products in store and 1 million products online in the US, Canada, and Mexico. Its stores offer building materials, home improvement products, lawn and garden products, and decor products and provide various services, including home improvement installation services and tool and equipment rentals. The acquisition of Interline Brands in 2015 allowed Home Depot to enter the MRO business, which has been expanded through the tie-up with HD Supply (2020). The 2024 tie-up with SRS will help grow professional demand in roofing, pool, and landscaping projects, while the 2025 purchase of GMS will lift building product sales through 1,340 distribution locations.

Home Depot is the world's largest home improvement specialty retailer, operating 2,361 warehouse-format stores offering more than 30,000 products in store and 1 million products online in the US, Canada, and Mexico. Its stores offer building materials, home improvement products, lawn and garden products, and decor products and provide various services, including home improvement installation services and tool and equipment rentals. The acquisition of Interline Brands in 2015 allowed Home Depot to enter the MRO business, which has been expanded through the tie-up with HD Supply (2020). The 2024 tie-up with SRS will help grow professional demand in roofing, pool, and landscaping projects, while the 2025 purchase of GMS will lift building product sales through 1,250 distribution locations.