Home Depot Earnings Tuesday — The Housing Data Influencers Are Ignoring

First correction before any trade plan: Home Depot reports on Tuesday, February 24, 2026. February 25, 2026 is Wednesday. Date discipline matters because event-week timing errors create bad entries and bad risk sizing.

Now the test. The dominant influencer shortcut is simple: "mortgage rates are high, existing home sales are weak, so HD should be bearish." We tested that framework against a multi-factor baseline using N=13 monthly observations (Jan 2025 to Jan 2026): mortgage rates, existing home sales, consumer sentiment, and HD returns. Headline result: HD monthly returns showed near-zero correlation with mortgage-rate changes (-0.05), while the stock still gained +10.53% from Jan 2 to Feb 20, 2026 even with existing home sales at just 3.91M SAAR (roughly the 7.7th percentile of history since 1999). For traders, this means Tuesday’s setup is less about one macro variable and more about guidance on customer mix, project ticket size, and margin quality in a K-shaped consumer environment.

Table 1 — Date verification and macro backdrop into Tuesday, Feb 24, 2026

Visual 1 — Why HD can diverge from housing-turnover headlines

flowchart TD
    A[High mortgage rates suppress home turnover] --> B[Fewer existing-home transactions]
    B --> C[Bearish influencer conclusion on housing retail]
    C --> D[Missed branch: existing homeowners delay moves]
    D --> E[More spend on repair/maintenance/upgrade cycles]
    E --> F[K-shaped demand: upper-income resilience, lower-income pressure]
    F --> G[Guidance quality (mix + margin) matters more than one macro print]

Caption: Housing turnover weakness and renovation resilience can coexist, producing mixed but tradable signals for HD.

What to notice: The key branch is homeowner behavior under rate lock-in, not just transaction volume.

So what: Tuesday guidance should be interpreted through mix and margin, not only macro headlines.

Table 2 — What the one-factor macro narrative misses (Jan 2025 to Jan 2026)

The practical takeaway is that influencer narratives often overfit one macro variable and underweight household composition. In a K-shaped consumer regime, the average can look weak while the profitable segment remains durable enough to support selected retailers.

This is exactly why Walmart’s recent guide-down is relevant context rather than a direct template. Walmart showed that even strong historical-quarter metrics can coexist with cautious forward EPS. For HD, the comparable risk is not a headline miss; it is a guidance tone that implies weaker high-ticket conversion or more promotional pressure than the market currently discounts.

Visual 2 — Correlation map for HD macro sensitivities (N=13 months)

xychart-beta
    title "HD monthly return correlations (Jan 2025-Jan 2026)"
    x-axis [MortgageChange, ExistingSalesMoM, UMichSentiment]
    y-axis "Correlation" -0.5 --> 0.5
    bar [-0.05, -0.38, 0.33]

Caption: In this sample, sentiment and mix proxies explain more than rate-change headlines.

What to notice: The one-factor "rates up = HD down" rule is statistically weak.

So what: Trade around guidance composition (DIY vs Pro, ticket size, margin) instead of macro absolutism.

Table 3 — What to extract from HD guidance on Tuesday

Action Checklist — Trading HD without the macro oversimplification trap

• Anchor on the correct event date: Tuesday, Feb 24, 2026.
• Separate turnover data (transactions) from renovation demand (maintenance cycles).
• Convert guidance language into explicit scenario ranges before entering.
• Track mix commentary: Pro vs DIY, ticket size, and promotional intensity.
• Compare first-session move versus XRT/XLY to isolate stock-specific repricing.
• Avoid immediate averaging if guidance implies margin-pressure persistence.
• Reassess after management Q&A, not only press-release headlines.

Evidence Block

• Primary sample: N=13 monthly observations from 2025-01 through 2026-01.
• Data used: HD monthly returns, Freddie Mac 30-year mortgage rate (MORTGAGE30US), existing home sales (EXHOSLUSM495S), UMich sentiment (UMCSENT), private residential construction spending (PRRESCONS).
• Headline number definition: "+10.53% HD return" = close-to-close return from 2026-01-02 to 2026-02-20.
• Baseline tested: One-factor macro rule (rates/turnover only) vs multi-factor interpretation including confidence and spending mix proxies.
• Timeframe: Monthly relationships for 13 observations; latest market prices through 2026-02-20.
• Assumptions: U.S. regular-session execution, no options payoff modeling, no leverage, equal weighting of monthly observations.
• Date/day validation: Calendar-checked that 2026-02-24 is Tuesday and 2026-02-25 is Wednesday.
• Caveat: Educational market analysis only; not personalized investment advice.

References

1. Home Depot earnings date coverage (Tuesday, Feb 24, 2026): https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/home-depot-hd-to-release-quarterly-earnings-on-feb-24-2026--302474761.html
2. Freddie Mac 30-year mortgage rate series (MORTGAGE30US): https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.csv?id=MORTGAGE30US
3. Existing home sales series (EXHOSLUSM495S): https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.csv?id=EXHOSLUSM495S
4. University of Michigan consumer sentiment (UMCSENT): https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.csv?id=UMCSENT
5. Private residential construction spending (PRRESCONS): https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.csv?id=PRRESCONS
6. BEA advance GDP release (Q4 2025 real GDP 1.4%, PCE inflation detail): https://www.bea.gov/news/2026/gross-domestic-product-fourth-quarter-and-year-2025-advance-estimate
7. Walmart guide-down context for K-shaped consumer risk framing: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/walmart-q4-comparable-sales-rise-us-demand-grocery-goods-remains-solid-2026-02-19/
8. HD and sector price history: https://stooq.com/q/d/l/?s=hd.us&i=d