Amazing how much influence these people have
No updates on all the net stocks they recommended last year?
Sets it up for an excellent short as the glow wears off
43 3/4 bid
Monday January 22, 2:12 pm Eastern Time
Home Depot Shares Climb with Retail Rally
ATLANTA (Reuters) - Shares of No. 1 home improvement chain Home Depot Inc. (NYSE:HD - news) rose 5 percent on Monday after brokerage Goldman Sachs raised its outlook on U.S. retailers, sparking a rally in the battered sector.
In New York Stock Exchange midafternoon trading, Home Depot was up $2-1/16 to $43, regaining some of the ground lost on Friday after the company said its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings would trail Wall Street estimates.
Home Depot, which will report financial results on Feb. 20, has traded as high as $70 during the past year.
In a research note, Goldman Sachs suggested that many retailers, which have been battered over the past months as U.S. consumer spending slowed, were poised for a recovery in the second half of this year if the economy improved.
Goldman Sachs described Home Depot, already on the brokerage's list of recommended stocks, as a ``favorite.''
But Home Depot was not alone among the winners in the retail sector. The retailer's main rival, North-Carolina-based Lowe's Cos Inc. (NYSE:LOW - news), gained $2-3/16, or 4.9 percent, to $46-9/16 on the NYSE. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE:WMT - news) jumped $2-1/8, or 4.2 percent, to $52-15/16 a share on the NYSE.
Dan Wewer, analyst at Deutsche Bank Alex. Brown, said Home Depot's outlook likely depended on the direction of interest rates. ``Historically, Home Depot's stock has responded very well to declining interest rates,'' Wewer said.
The U.S. Federal Reserve earlier this month cut rates by half a percentage point, and there is widespread belief that more cuts are to come. Retailers such as Home Depot are among the first to feel the effects of rate changes.
On Friday, Home Depot said earnings for the quarter ending Jan. 28 would be 20 percent below the year-earlier period due to the slowing U.S. economy. It said sales at stores open at least a year would be flat and that it did not expect conditions affecting sales to improve in its first half.
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