HD vs. LOW, LL, BLDR, FND, JCTCF, WMT, COST, BABA, MCD, and BKNG
Should you be buying Home Depot stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Home Depot include Lowe's Companies (LOW), LL Flooring (LL), Builders FirstSource (BLDR), Floor & Decor (FND), Jewett-Cameron Trading (JCTCF), Walmart (WMT), Costco Wholesale (COST), Alibaba Group (BABA), McDonald's (MCD), and Booking (BKNG). These companies are all part of the "retail/wholesale" sector.
Lowe's Companies (NYSE:LOW) and Home Depot (NYSE:HD) are both large-cap retail/wholesale companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, institutional ownership, dividends, profitability, media sentiment, community ranking, analyst recommendations, earnings and valuation.
74.1% of Lowe's Companies shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 70.9% of Home Depot shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.3% of Lowe's Companies shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.1% of Home Depot shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.
Lowe's Companies pays an annual dividend of $4.60 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.9%. Home Depot pays an annual dividend of $9.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.5%. Lowe's Companies pays out 36.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Home Depot pays out 60.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. Lowe's Companies has raised its dividend for 53 consecutive years and Home Depot has raised its dividend for 15 consecutive years.
In the previous week, Home Depot had 8 more articles in the media than Lowe's Companies. MarketBeat recorded 26 mentions for Home Depot and 18 mentions for Lowe's Companies. Lowe's Companies' average media sentiment score of 0.53 beat Home Depot's score of 0.50 indicating that Home Depot is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Home Depot has higher revenue and earnings than Lowe's Companies. Lowe's Companies is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Home Depot, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Lowe's Companies currently has a consensus price target of $250.04, suggesting a potential upside of 4.67%. Home Depot has a consensus price target of $381.80, suggesting a potential upside of 6.16%. Given Lowe's Companies' stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Home Depot is more favorable than Lowe's Companies.
Home Depot has a net margin of 9.79% compared to Home Depot's net margin of 8.46%. Lowe's Companies' return on equity of 1,056.67% beat Home Depot's return on equity.
Lowe's Companies has a beta of 1.08, suggesting that its stock price is 8% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Home Depot has a beta of 0.98, suggesting that its stock price is 2% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Home Depot received 317 more outperform votes than Lowe's Companies when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 71.53% of users gave Home Depot an outperform vote while only 69.73% of users gave Lowe's Companies an outperform vote.
Summary
Home Depot beats Lowe's Companies on 16 of the 21 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding HD and its top 5 competitors to their watchlist. Each company is represented with a line over a 90 day period.
Skip ChartThis chart shows the average media sentiment of NYSE and its competitors over the past 90 days as caculated by MarketBeat. The averaged score is equivalent to the following: Very Negative Sentiment <= -1.5, Negative Sentiment > -1.5 and <= -0.5, Neutral Sentiment > -0.5 and < 0.5, Positive Sentiment >= 0.5 and < 1.5, and Very Positive Sentiment >= 1.5.
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