$HD

The week ahead focuses on housing and consumer health. Housing starts and pending home sales are due Tuesday, with July starts up 19% month over month and pending sales down 5.4% in June. Earnings include Home Depot (est. $47.27B revenue, $4.73 EPS) and TJX (est. $15.18B revenue, $1.19 EPS), plus Walmart and Ross commentary.

This week’s focus includes earnings from Home Depot (HD), Target (TGT), TJX (TJX), and Walmart (WMT) to gauge consumer spending across income segments. Investors will also review Wednesday FOMC minutes (Fed Chair Kevin Warsh), Thursday Philadelphia Fed manufacturing data and initial jobless claims, and Friday preliminary Aug PMIs, plus crude oil inventories and Alibaba (BABA) results.

Home Depot CEO Ted Decker said he will take a brief medical leave for a few months, ahead of the company’s fiscal Q2 results on Aug. 18. Home Depot said Ann-Marie Campbell will handle operations and CFO Richard McPhail will handle finance and Pro. Investors will focus on Q2 demand, Pro performance, and reaffirmed fiscal 2026 guidance.

Investors are set for a busy earnings week focused on consumer spending. Walmart (Thursday), Target (Wednesday) and Home Depot (Wednesday) report quarterly results amid softer sentiment, with University of Michigan surveys showing declines and U.S. retail sales down 0.6% in July. The article also lists earnings from Lowe’s, Home Depot, Deere, TJX, Ross, BJ’s and others, plus Fed minutes.

U.S. stock indexes were mixed Monday. The S&P 500 stayed just above Friday’s record close, while the Dow and Nasdaq slipped slightly. Brent crude swung between about $80 and $86 amid reports of stalled Strait of Hormuz talks. Second-quarter earnings are nearly done, with analysts expecting ~50% profit growth since 2021. Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta rose; Nvidia and Apple fell.

According to latest filings, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust opened a new Home Depot (HD) position worth about $353 million in Q2. The article cites HD shares down ~15% YoY and expects fiscal 2026 comparable sales growth of 0% to 2% and adjusted operating margin of 12.4% to 12.6%. It compares HD’s valuation (~23x forward earnings) with Lowe’s (LOW).

Benzinga says 10 U.S.-listed stocks face the largest options-implied moves this week, with expected swings up to 17.26%. It cites earnings dates and consensus figures for companies including Wolfspeed, Coty, BILL, Mercury Systems, ScanSource, and others, noting implied move reflects expected volatility, not direction.

This week’s Wall Street calendar includes earnings from Home Depot (Tuesday), Target and Lowe’s (Wednesday), and Walmart (Thursday), which investors will use to gauge consumer and housing demand amid inflation above 3%. The Fed will release minutes from its July meeting on Wednesday, after rates were held steady with three officials dissenting.

South Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission will integrate nuclear safety and regulatory cooperation into overseas reactor bids, starting with countries such as Vietnam and the Philippines. The plan supports TerraPower’s Natrium build in Wyoming and deepens ties with SK Innovation and Hyundai firms, including Hyundai E&C for up to eight reactors.

A week of earnings is scheduled for Aug 17 to 21, with 103 companies reporting, including Home Depot before the open and Baidu, Klarna and Fabrinet on the tape. The article also lists major dividend payouts, including Starbucks ($706.8M, 62 cents) and Honeywell ($222M, 70 cents).