NEW YORK, January 1, 2026, 14:23 ET — Market closed.
Home Depot (HD) shares ended the final regular session of 2025 down 0.6% at $344.10, with U.S. stock markets closed on Thursday for the New Year’s Day holiday. The stock traded between $343.98 and $346.69 in the session. 1
The late-year dip matters because Home Depot is a bellwether for U.S. home improvement demand, which often tracks housing turnover and the cost of borrowing. With 2026 beginning, investors are looking for signs that easing rates translate into bigger renovation projects and higher spending per trip.
The broader market offered little support into year-end, with the S&P 500 down 0.74% on Dec. 31, while the Dow fell 0.63% and the Nasdaq slid 0.76%, Reuters reported. “It’s perfectly fine in any bull market to have moments of cost,” said Giuseppe Sette, co-founder and president of Reflexivity, pointing to profit-taking when liquidity is low. 2
Rival Lowe’s closed down 0.8% and building-products supplier Masco fell 1.2% in the same session.
In a Dec. 9 strategic update, The Home Depot reaffirmed its fiscal 2025 guidance and set a preliminary fiscal 2026 outlook. The company forecast total sales growth of about 2.5% to 4.5% and comparable sales — sales at stores open at least a year — flat to up 2%, with diluted earnings per share (EPS) seen flat to up 4%. It pegged the overall home improvement market at between a 1% contraction and 1% growth. 3
Comparable sales are a closely watched gauge because they strip out the impact of new store openings. EPS is a standard per-share profit metric used to compare companies across time and against analyst forecasts.
Home Depot has been pushing deeper into its “Pro” business — sales to professional contractors — while keeping a close eye on discretionary spending from do-it-yourself shoppers. Investors are watching whether any improvement in housing activity shows up first in Pro demand and bigger-ticket categories.
Before the next session, traders will focus on early-January U.S. data that can move bond yields and mortgage rates, including the ISM manufacturing PMI on Jan. 5 and the Employment Situation report for December on Jan. 9. 4
Policy watchers will also look ahead to the Federal Reserve’s Jan. 27–28 meeting, where any shift in the interest-rate outlook could ripple quickly through housing-related stocks. 5
For Home Depot, the next major company catalyst is its quarterly update, with earnings calendars expecting the next report around Feb. 24; the retailer has not yet listed upcoming events on its investor-relations page. Guidance for fiscal 2026 — and any color on Pro demand and larger projects — is likely to set the tone for the stock as 2026 trading gets underway. 6
