Home Depot Inc. (HD): Ticket-led comp beat; Tariff refund cushions gross margin against rising input costs

Research evidence excerpt

Equity Research

18 August 2026 | 5:28PM EDT

Home Depot Inc. (HD)

Ticket-led comp beat; Tariff refund cushions gross margin against rising input costs

HD

12m Price Target: $377.00

Price: $337.49

Upside: 11.7%

Shares of HD traded down today (-0.3% vs. -0.7% for the S&P 500)

after the company reported a 2Q26 beat and reaffirmed its FY26

guidance despite the ongoing challenging housing macroeconomic

backdrop. Key takeaways from the quarter include: 1)

Comparable-store sales accelerated sequentially to +1.7% y/y,

driven by average ticket strength of +2.8% while transactions

declined 1.0%; 2) Gross margin expanded 25 bps to 33.7%,

supported by a $685mn reduction in COGS from tariff refunds (+145

bps), which offset rising input costs (-60 bps) and the acquisition mix

(-60 bps); and 3) SRS outperformed the company average with

positive comps across all verticals, and management expects SRS to

achieve mid-single-digit organic growth in FY26.

We maintain our Buy rating on HD despite a still-challenging housing

macro backdrop and were encouraged by the better trends in Q2

which were driven by share gains. We think the company is poised to

accelerate growth when the housing environment improves but is

also well positioned to take share given its ongoing investments and

acquisitions. Our estimates for FY27-FY28 are now slightly higher on

a slightly better top line estimate. We update our target price to

$377, down from $390 prior.

BUY

Kate McShane, CFA

Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC

Nishi Agarwal

Goldman Sachs India SPL

Mark Jordan, CFA

Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC

Key Data _____________________________________

Market cap: $352.0bn

Enterprise value: $397.0bn

3m ADTV: $1.5bn

United States

Americas Retail Specialty Hardlines, Supermarkets and

Discount Stores

M&A Rank: 3

GS Forecast __________________________________

1/27E

1/28E

1/29E

Revenue ($ mn) New

164,683.0 171,397.5

1/26

177,357.1

184,451.4

Revenue ($ mn) Old

164,683.0 170,183.5

176,990.9

184,070.5

EPS ($) New

14.69

15.00

16.11

17.53

EPS ($) Old

14.69

14.84

16.06

17.52

P/E (X)

25.5

22.5

21.0

19.2

EV/EBITDA (X)

16.5

14.6

13.5

12.5

FCF yield (%)

3.4

5.0

5.4

5.3

Dividend yield (%)

2.5

2.8

2.9

Net debt/EBITDA (X)

1.9

1.7

1.6

1.5

7/26

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