Home Depot Attains New 52-Week High - Analyst Blog
April 10 2013 - 1:10PM
Zacks
Boosted by the recent rebound in the U.S. housing market, shares
of The Home Depot Inc. (HD) hit a new 52-week high
of $71.57 yesterday, before closing at $71.20. This Zacks Rank #3
(Hold) home improvement retailer beat its previous 52-week high of
$71.45 and has generated a year-to-date return of approximately
12.8%.
Average volume of shares traded over the last 3 months came in
at approximately 6,772K. Currently, the stock trades at a forward
P/E of 20.3x, flat to its peer group.
Home Depot is a leading player in the highly-fragmented home
improvement industry. The company has been revamping itself by
concentrating on square footage growth and maximization of
productivity from its existing store base.
In addition, the company has implemented significant changes to
its store operations to make them simpler and more
customer-friendly. We believe these initiatives will induce more
traffic to its stores while boosting its top line.
Home depot has always maintained a disciplined capital
allocation strategy, focused on making investments to develop its
business, while using the excess cash to enhance shareholder
returns via paying dividends and share buybacks. Since 1987, the
company has increased its dividend from 0.06 cents to 39 cents.
Additionally, the company targets to grow return on invested
capital to 24% by the close of 2015.
The company also boasts of an impressive record of beating the
quarterly earnings expectations and favorable outlook.
With respect to earnings surprise, Home Depot has beaten the
Zacks Consensus Estimate 19 times in the last 20 quarters with an
average surprise of 12.2%. In the last reported, i.e. for the
fourth quarter of fiscal 2012, the company’s earnings beat the
Zacks Consensus Estimate by 4.7%.
The company’s adjusted earnings of 67 cents per share jumped
approximately 34.0% from the year-ago quarter’s earnings of 50
cents and beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 64 cents. The
increased bottom line was aided by strong sales growth and improved
operating performance.
Buoyed by better-than-expected results, Home Depot projected
fiscal 2013 earnings to grow by nearly 12% to $3.37 per share and
total sales to increase by 2.0% year over year, with comparable
store sales expected to rise nearly 3.0%.
Besides Home Depot, companies such as V.F.
Corp. (VFC), The Walt Disney Company
(DIS) and Time Warner Inc. (TWX) achieved new
52-week highs of $170.56, $59.24 and $59.09, respectively,
yesterday.
DISNEY WALT (DIS): Free Stock Analysis Report
HOME DEPOT (HD): Free Stock Analysis Report
TIME WARNER INC (TWX): Free Stock Analysis Report
V F CORP (VFC): Free Stock Analysis Report
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