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Strategies & Market Trends : Value Investing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Carl Worth who wrote (23970)	5/20/2006 2:11:49 PM
From: Paul Senior	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78748

LOW vs. HD. I've not been able to discern if they're zero sum competitors, i.e. if LOW's gain is HD's loss or vice versa. At one point HD chairman said there was room for growth for both companies, Lowes' growth was not HD's loss, and that they'd both grow by taking business from mom-n-pop hardware stores. Recently there may be a shift in HD business emphasis from retail to professional contractors and to service/installation. HD has made some small acquisitions for that. I've bought HD. In retrospect, LOW would've been the better buy - it's had the better stock performance. I'm not a follower of PEG numbers, and I've no opinion on growth prospects (sales and/or earnings estimates) for one company vs. the other. Compared to LOW, HD has the lower p/e, the lower p/sales, the lower p/book, the higher profit margins. Given those metrics, I like HD better. There's been insider sales though, with some reported by Warren Buffett recently. That's somewhat disconcerting to me, esp. since his partner, C. Munger, was or is on HD's BOD.