Home Depot’s strong quarter shows housing market is still booming

The home improvement retail giant reported better-than-expected gains in sales and earnings for the first quarter Tuesday and lifted its outlook for the rest of this fiscal year.Shares of Home Depot (HD), one of the 30 stocks in the Dow, was up nearly 2% in late afternoon trading.

Stocks were broadly higher Tuesday despite weak earnings from retailer Walmart (WMT), another Dow component,which fell about 9%. Home Depot rival Lowe’s (LOW), which will report its first quarter earnings Wednesday, was down about 1%.

Home Depot has gotten off to a rough start this year because investors are concerned about a possible pullback in housing as interest rates and inflation zoom higher. Shares are still down nearly 30% in 2022 despite Tuesday’s good news.