NEW YORK, December 31, 2025, 20:13 ET — Market closed.
Home Depot (HD.N) shares fell 0.6% to $344.10 on Wednesday, after trading between $343.98 and $346.69. Rival Lowe’s (LOW.N) slid 0.8%, while the consumer-discretionary sector also eased.
The move matters now because Home Depot is a read-through on U.S. repair-and-remodel demand, which often tracks housing activity and borrowing costs. With the calendar turning, investors are also repositioning around interest-rate expectations that can quickly change sentiment toward housing-linked stocks.
Wall Street finished the final session of 2025 lower in light trading, and Treasury yields climbed after a labor-market update showed fewer unemployment-benefit applications than expected. The benchmark 10-year yield rose 3.5 basis points — a basis point is one-hundredth of a percentage point — to 4.163%, Reuters reported. “It was a rather tiring year looking back on it,” said Scott Ladner, chief investment officer at Horizon. Reuters
For Home Depot, higher yields matter because they can feed into mortgage rates and slow home sales and big-ticket upgrades. That can keep shoppers focused on smaller repairs rather than discretionary remodels.
The company’s latest major signpost remains its December investor conference, where it laid out a preliminary fiscal 2026 framework. Home Depot said it expected comparable sales — sales at stores open at least a year — to be roughly flat to up 2%, with total sales growth of about 2.5% to 4.5%, and adjusted earnings per share (which excludes certain items) flat to up about 4%.
Those targets leave investors looking for clearer proof that demand is stabilizing, especially in categories tied to housing turnover and larger projects. Analysts have also been watching whether spending by professional contractors holds up as the broader home-improvement market waits for a stronger housing backdrop.
Home Depot and Lowe’s remain the key bellwethers in the home-improvement aisle, and their shares often move together on rate and housing signals. Divergence typically shows up when investors start pricing different momentum in the pro customer versus do-it-yourself mix.
Before the next session, U.S. equity markets will be closed on Thursday for New Year’s Day and reopen on Friday.
Friday brings fresh economic catalysts that can shape early-2026 positioning in housing-linked names. The New York Fed’s economic calendar lists initial jobless claims at 8:30 a.m. ET and U.S. construction spending at 10:00 a.m. ET on January 2, with the monthly employment report due January 9.
Company-wise, the next hard catalyst is earnings. Home Depot is expected to report on February 24, 2026, according to Zacks, with investors likely to focus on any update to the company’s 2026 outlook and the pace of comparable-sales recovery.
Technically, traders will be watching whether HD holds the $340 area and whether it can regain $350, a psychologically important level near recent trading. A break either way could set the tone for the first weeks of 2026.
With bond yields back in focus after Wednesday’s climb, the rate path and the first batch of January housing-adjacent data will be the near-term drivers. For Home Depot, the next leg will hinge on whether borrowing costs ease enough to lift home turnover — and, with it, demand for bigger home-improvement projects.
