The biggest home improvement chain suggested US home sales were slowing and impending trade tariffs could raise prices for its products. In an article by Aishwarya Venugopal of Reuters the company which sells more power tools, flooring and lawn mowers believes the next quarter will be lower, although the past quarter was stronger than expected.

Sales are still good at Home Depot with sales a stores open for more than one year up 5.4% beating the expectation of 4.38%.

The tariff question is products coming from China which the President may or may not add more tariffs. Home Depot has 3.5% of its goods coming from China up from 1%.

On balance the company continues to do very well with net sales up to $26.30 billion and net earnings to $2.87 billion or $2.52 a share.

For anything that happens in housing, Home Depot is a bell weather stock because it is a market leader in what people need to keep their homes in good repair and looking good. One of the many methods you can tell how good a neighborhood is doing is looking at the home renovations. What are regular people doing? Eventually you can translate the information in how is the company doing? Then other home work is required.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.