(Photo Credit: Mike Mozart)
Home Depot (HD) is set to report earnings for the third quarter of the year on Tuesday, November 18 before the market opens. Over the past couple years Home Depot’s performance has been improving on the bottom line, the company has been buying back stock, and a recent pickup in housing data has investors optimistic about this week’s report.
Analysts on Estimize are expecting Home Depot to announce earnings of $1.15 per share, topping Wall Steet’s EPS consensus by 2 cents. In August Home Depot had a huge win when it came out with earnings of $1.52 per share, beating the the Street’s consensus by 8 cents per share and coming in 7 cents above the forecast from Estimize. Company stock jumped 8.2% higher over the 3 days after last quarter’s results and Home Depot shares have continued to show strength throughout the quarter heading into Tuesday’s report.
(Graph above from ChartIQ Visual Earnings)
Tuesday contributing 
While profit gains have been robust lately, revenue improvements have been more modest. In the first two quarters of this year Home Depot reported sales growth of 3% and 6% respectively.
For the third quarter the Estimize community is projecting a 5% improvement. A 5% gain would be the company’s second best quarter reported over the past year, bested only by the 6% increase registered over the summer.
Since April of this year home sales have been trending higher. Alongside rising housing numbers we’ve also seen earnings expectations on the Estimize platform surge. Since September the Estimize revenue consensus has increased by $76 million and Wall Street recently raised its estimates too.
The Street’s EPS consensus has climbed from $1.11 in July to $1.13 ahead of the report while the Estimize consensus also jumped 2 cents higher from $1.13 to $1.15. Upward analyst estimate revisions heading into a report are often a bullish indicator.
