- Home Depot (NYSE:HD) +1% premarket as Nomura upgrades shares to Buy from Neutral with a $155 price target, saying the company is gaining market share and competitive advantages, and benefiting from an improving overall market.
- Nomura says the biggest change in its HD outlook is the previous notion that slowing home price growth posed a sizable risk, but comp sales remained solidly positive even after the Y/Y increase in home price growth slowed to 5.6% in 2015 and 4.4% in 2014 from 13.5% in 2013.
- While the firm still expects slowing home price gains, it believes any positive growth would be a tailwind, and is just one of several factors affecting the contribution from housing to HD’s sales opportunity, including housing formation, turnover and aging housing stock.