HD · Forward model · McPhail case
The McPhail case, 20 quarters out
Each segment is projected from its own operating driver, rolled up into consolidated cash flow, and discounted back to a fair value per share. The assumptions below are editable — change them and every number on this page moves with them.
Two verticals, two disclosed lines, and nothing apportioned. Home Depot has reported a two-way segment split since it adopted ASU 2023-07: a Primary reportable segment aggregating the U.S., Canada and Mexico operating segments together with the online business and HD Supply, and an 'Other' line holding five non-reportable SRS operating segments. In all fourteen quarters carried here they sum to reported consolidated net sales to the dollar - $42,806M plus $5,055M equals $47,861M at the basis quarter - and the earnings bridge reconciles every one of the fourteen at zero difference. No sub-split is invented: HD Supply inside Primary, Pro versus DIY, organic versus acquired growth inside Other, and the three merchandising product lines are all either undisclosed or too short and too uniform a series to earn a vertical, and none of them appears here. THE QUARTER LABELS ARE CALENDAR, NOT FISCAL, AND THE SEASONAL FACTORS FOLLOW THEM. This site names a quarter for the calendar quarter its period ends in, so the basis quarter - fiscal 2026 Q2 in Home Depot's own labelling, the 13 weeks ended 2 August 2026 - is '2026 Q3' here, and data/companies/hd/earnings.json calls the same period '2026 Q2'. The mapping is calendar Q1 = fiscal Q4, Q2 = fiscal Q1, Q3 = fiscal Q2, Q4 = fiscal Q3, and both seasonality arrays are written in the calendar order the engine indexes. Primary carries [0.9201, 0.9753, 1.1161, 0.9885] - the spring peak sits at index 3 because calendar Q3 is fiscal Q2 - derived over three complete fiscal-year windows with a worst window-to-window spread of 0.0148 against 0.196 of amplitude. Other carries [0.7740, 0.9794, 1.2137, 1.0328] from two rolling windows. The fiscal 2024 fourth quarter was 14 weeks and is rescaled 13/14 in every factor. Because seasonality is present, each driver rate here is a DESEASONALISED TREND, not a printed sequential step: the engine deseasonalises the basis quarter, runs the driver, then reapplies the factor. Average ticket is left aseasonal deliberately, and that is a finding rather than a gap. Deriving factors on customer transactions alone gives 0.9707 / 1.1232 / 0.9870 / 0.9191 in fiscal order, while average ticket gives 1.0123 / 0.9963 / 0.9941 / 0.9973 - a whole seasonal amplitude of 0.018 index points against window spreads of up to 0.021. The noise exceeds the signal, so all of Home Depot's seasonality lives in traffic and none of it in price. The unit driver is fed deseasonalised inputs for the same mechanical reason: runUnitCurve compounds from units and price and ignores the deseasonalised base, while the projection still multiplies by the factor, so 394.58M and $97.20 go in rather than the printed 443.2M and the printed $92.50 ticket. Where the model sits against the company's own guidance, on the model's own output. Fiscal 2026 net sales come out at $170.8bn, +3.7% on fiscal 2025's $164,683M, inside the reaffirmed 2.5%-4.5% guide and above its midpoint. The second half is $81.17bn against the $79.17bn-$82.47bn the guide implies after a first half that ran +5.3%. The next quarter - fiscal 2026 Q3, labelled 2026 Q4 here - is $42.38bn, +2.48% year over year, and the January quarter is $38.80bn, +1.56%. Projected second-half capital expenditure is 2.52% of projected second-half sales against a guide of approximately 2.5%. Carrying the first half's $2,161M of D&A into the second half and the guided $2.3bn of net interest and 24.3% tax rate, the model implies about $14.80 of fiscal 2026 GAAP diluted EPS on 996M diluted shares - the top of the guided flat-to-+4.0% range off $14.23 - and about 12.7% of GAAP operating margin against a guided 12.4%-12.6%. The model therefore runs at the optimistic edge of the profit guide and in the upper half of the sales guide; it is not tuned to the midpoint of either. Three limitations to hold in view. First, fiscal 2027 lands at $173.0bn, only +1.3%, because the deseasonalised Primary trend is +0.27% a quarter and the fiscal 2026 first half was above that line; consensus adjusted EPS of $16.07 for the year ending January 2028 implies a faster top line than this, and the drivers are deliberately NOT calibrated onto sell-side estimates. No revenue consensus was verifiable from an openable source and none is used. Second, Other grows at organic-plus-branches only. Home Depot has spent roughly $14bn on SRS, GMS and Mingledorff's in three years, gives no forward acquisition guidance, and another tuck-in would put this model below reported revenue without the model being wrong; no acquisition allowance is added. Third, the capital expenditure split - 2.65% of Primary revenue against 1.50% of Other - is judgement, not disclosure. Home Depot does not split capex by segment; the two were chosen to blend to the guided ~2.5% of total sales, so consolidated free cash flow is sound and no per-vertical free-cash-flow claim should be built on the split. Share count is fixed at 998,000,000 and that is deliberate. Treasury stock stood unchanged at 806 million shares between 1 February and 2 August 2026, shares outstanding rose from 995M to 998M year over year, and neither the financing section of the cash-flow statement nor the call's capital-allocation discussion contains a repurchase. Deleveraging - $3,040M of long-term debt repaid in the first half - and the $2.33 quarterly dividend are the uses of cash, so no buyback-driven per-share accretion is modelled. Corporate overhead is zero because the segment reconciliation has no unallocated line: Primary $6,592M plus Other $247M equals consolidated operating income of $6,839M, with only interest and tax below it.
The CFO's own thesis, and it is a mean-reversion argument about a variable Home Depot does not control. Housing turnover has never been a smaller share of the housing stock and it has sat there for four years, roughly twice as long as any prior episode. Richard McPhail's historical claim is that every time turnover has reached about 3% of the stock changing hands it has bounced back relatively quickly. If it does, the ticket-led comp finally acquires the volume it has been missing for six quarters and Primary's -0.22% quarterly transaction drift inverts rather than merely flattening. This case puts the weight where the thesis does - on traffic: +0.45pp a quarter on Primary against the bull case's +0.15pp, a smaller +0.3pp on Other, 25bp and 40bp of margin, and today's 15.33x multiple held rather than compressed to 14x. What it does not achieve is a fair value above the share price - even with the unfreeze and no multiple compression it lands just under $337.43 - and it is not evidence of anything: no filing forecasts a turnover recovery, and the CFO said in the same breath that there is no sign of an inflection point.
Latest: $56.65B (2031Q3E)
| Period | Value |
|---|---|
| 2023Q2 | $37.26B |
| 2023Q3 | $42.92B |
| 2023Q4 | $37.71B |
| 2024Q1 | $34.79B |
| 2024Q2 | $36.42B |
| 2024Q3 | $43.17B |
| 2024Q4 | $40.22B |
| 2025Q1 | $39.70B |
| 2025Q2 | $39.86B |
| 2025Q3 | $45.28B |
| 2025Q4 | $41.35B |
| 2026Q1 | $38.20B |
| 2026Q2 | $41.77B |
| 2026Q3 | $47.86B |
| 2026Q4E | $42.56B |
| 2027Q1E | $39.13B |
| 2027Q2E | $42.51B |
| 2027Q3E | $49.47B |
| 2027Q4E | $43.99B |
| 2028Q1E | $40.43B |
| 2028Q2E | $43.95B |
| 2028Q3E | $51.15B |
| 2028Q4E | $45.49B |
| 2029Q1E | $41.79B |
| 2029Q2E | $45.45B |
| 2029Q3E | $52.91B |
| 2029Q4E | $47.05B |
| 2030Q1E | $43.21B |
| 2030Q2E | $47.01B |
| 2030Q3E | $54.74B |
| 2030Q4E | $48.68B |
| 2031Q1E | $44.69B |
| 2031Q2E | $48.64B |
| 2031Q3E | $56.65B |
What drives each segment
Primary segment - stores, online and HD Supply
Units × priceHome Depot's one reportable segment: 2,364 retail stores across the U.S., Canada and Mexico, the interconnected online business and HD Supply facilities maintenance, aggregated from three geographic operating segments. It is $42,806M of the basis quarter's $47,861M - 89.4% of the company - and it is the line management guides through comparable sales. Revenue here is a volume the company publishes every quarter, customer transactions, monetised at a price it also publishes, average ticket. In the basis quarter volume fell and price rose: transactions -0.8% to 443.2M, comparable transactions -1.0%, comparable average ticket +2.8%. Home Depot sold to fewer people for more money, and it has done so for six straight quarters.
Latest: $49.95B (2031Q3E)
| Period | Value |
|---|---|
| 2023Q2 | $37.26B |
| 2023Q3 | $42.92B |
| 2023Q4 | $37.71B |
| 2024Q1 | $34.79B |
| 2024Q2 | $36.42B |
| 2024Q3 | $41.90B |
| 2024Q4 | $37.29B |
| 2025Q1 | $37.50B |
| 2025Q2 | $37.29B |
| 2025Q3 | $42.16B |
| 2025Q4 | $37.46B |
| 2026Q1 | $35.06B |
| 2026Q2 | $37.76B |
| 2026Q3 | $42.81B |
| 2026Q4E | $38.19B |
| 2027Q1E | $35.80B |
| 2027Q2E | $38.23B |
| 2027Q3E | $44.07B |
| 2027Q4E | $39.33B |
| 2028Q1E | $36.88B |
| 2028Q2E | $39.40B |
| 2028Q3E | $45.43B |
| 2028Q4E | $40.55B |
| 2029Q1E | $38.04B |
| 2029Q2E | $40.63B |
| 2029Q3E | $46.86B |
| 2029Q4E | $41.83B |
| 2030Q1E | $39.25B |
| 2030Q2E | $41.93B |
| 2030Q3E | $48.37B |
| 2030Q4E | $43.19B |
| 2031Q1E | $40.52B |
| 2031Q2E | $43.30B |
| 2031Q3E | $49.95B |
Assumptions & reasoning
- Segment identity, not an apportionment. Home Depot has disclosed Primary net sales, operating income and D&A in every 10-Q since fiscal 2025 Q1 under ASU 2023-07. Ten of the fourteen quarters here are copied straight from those tables; the four fiscal 2023 quarters use the identity Primary = consolidated, which the fiscal 2025 10-K confirms annually ($152,669M Primary equals $152,669M consolidated for fiscal 2023) and which holds because Other was nil until SRS closed on 18 June 2024. The two fourth quarters, 2025 Q1 and 2026 Q1 here, are derived as full year less nine months and are marked estimated.
- The 15.75% EBITDA margin is the trailing twelve months, not the basis quarter. Segment-disclosed: TTM Primary operating income $20,731M plus TTM Primary D&A $3,374M over TTM Primary net sales $153,091M. The basis quarter itself ran 17.41% because margin is seasonal too, and the engine applies one margin to every projected quarter - starting from the peak would overstate every winter.
- The published average ticket and customer transactions exclude HD Supply and SRS, so the driver's price is Primary net sales divided by transactions, $97.20, not the published $92.50. The $1.8bn-a-quarter gap is HD Supply, which Home Depot does not size separately. No Pro-versus-DIY split exists in any filing and none is invented here.
- The basis quarter's gross margin contains $685M of IEEPA tariff refunds that reduced cost of goods sold, and management says those refunds are offsetting unplanned fuel, energy and input costs across the year, with fourth-quarter gross margin expected 'right around flat' year over year. The refund is timing, not level, which is one reason the terminal margin is set 35bp below trailing rather than above it.
Other - SRS specialty trade distribution
Growth pathThe 'Other' line in the segment note: five SRS operating segments - roofing and building products, interior and construction products, landscape, pool and HVAC - none individually large enough to be reportable under Topic 280. It is the entire growth story. Other net sales went from nil before 18 June 2024 to $5,055M in the basis quarter, 10.6% of the company, and it is what turned +1.7% comparable sales into +5.7% total sales. It was built by acquisition - SRS in 2024, GMS for $5.1bn in September 2025, Mingledorff's for about $1.1bn in May 2026 - and management now guides it organically: mid-single-digit percent organic sales growth plus 40 to 50 new branches this year.
Latest: $6.71B (2031Q3E)
| Period | Value |
|---|---|
| 2023Q2 | $0.00 |
| 2023Q3 | $0.00 |
| 2023Q4 | $0.00 |
| 2024Q1 | $0.00 |
| 2024Q2 | $0.00 |
| 2024Q3 | $1.27B |
| 2024Q4 | $2.93B |
| 2025Q1 | $2.20B |
| 2025Q2 | $2.57B |
| 2025Q3 | $3.12B |
| 2025Q4 | $3.89B |
| 2026Q1 | $3.14B |
| 2026Q2 | $4.00B |
| 2026Q3 | $5.05B |
| 2026Q4E | $4.37B |
| 2027Q1E | $3.33B |
| 2027Q2E | $4.29B |
| 2027Q3E | $5.39B |
| 2027Q4E | $4.66B |
| 2028Q1E | $3.54B |
| 2028Q2E | $4.55B |
| 2028Q3E | $5.72B |
| 2028Q4E | $4.94B |
| 2029Q1E | $3.75B |
| 2029Q2E | $4.81B |
| 2029Q3E | $6.05B |
| 2029Q4E | $5.21B |
| 2030Q1E | $3.96B |
| 2030Q2E | $5.08B |
| 2030Q3E | $6.37B |
| 2030Q4E | $5.49B |
| 2031Q1E | $4.17B |
| 2031Q2E | $5.34B |
| 2031Q3E | $6.71B |
Assumptions & reasoning
- Nine quarters of disclosed history and five explicit zeros before them. The zeros are real, not padding around a gap: Other did not exist until SRS closed on 18 June 2024, and the fiscal 2025 10-K confirms Primary equalled consolidated for all of fiscal 2023. They are marked estimated because they come from that identity rather than from a printed segment table.
- The first non-zero quarter is a stub. SRS closed roughly six weeks into fiscal 2024 Q2, so the $1,274M in 2024 Q3 here is not a full quarter of trading; it is carried as history but is excluded from every growth rate and every seasonal factor in this model.
- The 7.28% EBITDA margin is segment-disclosed on a trailing-twelve-month basis: operating income $291M plus D&A $880M over net sales $16,085M. The reported operating margin is far thinner, about 1.8%, because most of this segment's D&A is acquired-intangible amortisation - $125M of the $236M booked in the basis quarter. Terminal 8.0% sits between today and fiscal 2024's pre-GMS 8.91%: scale on integration, not a re-rating.
- A capacity driver on branches was considered and rejected. Branch counts are disclosed only as rounded floors - 'over 760', 'over 800', 'over 1,200', 'over 1,340' - and the base stepped with acquisitions rather than with capacity added, so revenue per branch would be an artefact of the rounding. Growth on the disclosed net-sales line is the only evidenced driver here.
- Home Depot has spent roughly $8bn on SRS, $5.1bn on GMS and $1.1bn on Mingledorff's in three years and gives no forward acquisition guidance. The 1.40% quarterly rate is organic plus new branches only. A further tuck-in would put this model below reported revenue without the model being wrong, and no acquisition allowance is added to pretend otherwise.
Where each case comes from
Bear case — primary sources
The primary sources this case is built from — filings, calls and posts. Where they are claims by an interested party rather than disclosures, every number in the Bear column is what happens if they are taken at face value.
What the reaffirmed guide implies for the second half
The storm dependency, in the CFO's words
- Aug 18, 2026 in the back half of 2025, we saw the least amount of storm activity in many years, and SRS was pressured by the lack of that activity
- Aug 27, 2026 Consensus EPS forecast 3.88 for the fiscal quarter ending Oct 2026: 11 estimates, 0 upward and 7 downward revisions over the last four weeks
Bull case — primary sources
The primary sources this case is built from — filings, calls and posts. Where they are claims by an interested party rather than disclosures, every number in the Bull column is what happens if they are taken at face value.
What the basis quarter actually printed
How management described the start of the third quarter
McPhail case — primary sources
The primary sources this case is built from — filings, calls and posts. Where they are claims by an interested party rather than disclosures, every number in the McPhail column is what happens if they are taken at face value.
From cash flow to fair value
| Present value of free cash flow, 20 quarters | $72.12B |
| Terminal-year revenue | $198.66B |
| Terminal-year EBITDA | $29.60B |
| Exit multiple, on ebitda | 15.3x |
| Terminal value | $453.75B |
| Discounted at 8.0% a year, terminal value becomes | $308.82B |
| Enterprise value | $380.94B |
| Net cash | -$50.81B |
| Equity value | $330.12B |
| Shares | 1.00B |
| Fair value per share | $330.79 |
| Against the current price of $328.61 | +1% |
Home Depot trades at 15.33x trailing EBITDA: an enterprise value of $387.6bn - $336.8bn of market capitalisation on 998M shares at the 24 August 2026 close of $337.43, plus $50.8bn of net debt - over trailing twelve-month EBITDA of $25,276M, which ties by segment as Primary $24,105M plus Other $1,171M. The base case exits at 14.0x, below today's rating, because a terminal multiple should not assume the current one survives five years on a franchise whose return on invested capital has fallen from 27.2% to 24.8% and whose customer transactions have declined for six straight quarters. The 8.0% discount rate blends roughly 4.4% pre-tax debt - the guided $2.3bn of net interest on $52.9bn of debt - at about 13% weight with 8.5% equity at 87%. This one assumption outweighs every driver on the page: $255.2bn of the base case's $322.8bn enterprise value, 79%, is the discounted exit multiple rather than the twenty-quarter path, and a single turn of EBITDA on the $26.8bn terminal year is $18.2bn once discounted, about $18 a share.
Read the other way round: at $328.61 the market is paying 15.2x terminal-year revenue, holding every other assumption on this page fixed. That is the number to argue about.
The projected path
| Quarter | Primary segment - stores, online and HD Supply | Other - SRS specialty trade distribution | Revenue | YoY | EBITDA | Capex | FCF | R40 | PV of FCF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 Q4E | $38.19B | $4.37B | $42.56B | +3% | $6.44B | $1.07B | $4.06B | +12 | $3.98B |
| 2027 Q1E | $35.80B | $3.33B | $39.13B | +2% | $5.97B | $989M | $3.77B | +12 | $3.63B |
| 2027 Q2E | $38.23B | $4.29B | $42.51B | +2% | $6.42B | $1.06B | $4.06B | +11 | $3.83B |
| 2027 Q3E | $44.07B | $5.39B | $49.47B | +3% | $7.43B | $1.23B | $4.70B | +13 | $4.35B |
| 2027 Q4E | $39.33B | $4.66B | $43.99B | +3% | $6.61B | $1.09B | $4.18B | +13 | $3.80B |
| 2028 Q1E | $36.88B | $3.54B | $40.43B | +3% | $6.13B | $1.00B | $3.88B | +13 | $3.46B |
| 2028 Q2E | $39.40B | $4.55B | $43.95B | +3% | $6.60B | $1.08B | $4.18B | +13 | $3.65B |
| 2028 Q3E | $45.43B | $5.72B | $51.15B | +3% | $7.65B | $1.25B | $4.84B | +13 | $4.15B |
| 2028 Q4E | $40.55B | $4.94B | $45.49B | +3% | $6.81B | $1.11B | $4.31B | +13 | $3.63B |
| 2029 Q1E | $38.04B | $3.75B | $41.79B | +3% | $6.31B | $1.03B | $4.00B | +13 | $3.30B |
| 2029 Q2E | $40.63B | $4.81B | $45.45B | +3% | $6.80B | $1.11B | $4.31B | +13 | $3.49B |
| 2029 Q3E | $46.86B | $6.05B | $52.91B | +3% | $7.88B | $1.28B | $5.00B | +13 | $3.97B |
| 2029 Q4E | $41.83B | $5.21B | $47.05B | +3% | $7.02B | $1.14B | $4.45B | +13 | $3.46B |
| 2030 Q1E | $39.25B | $3.96B | $43.21B | +3% | $6.51B | $1.05B | $4.13B | +13 | $3.15B |
| 2030 Q2E | $41.93B | $5.08B | $47.01B | +3% | $7.02B | $1.14B | $4.45B | +13 | $3.33B |
| 2030 Q3E | $48.37B | $6.37B | $54.74B | +3% | $8.13B | $1.32B | $5.16B | +13 | $3.79B |
| 2030 Q4E | $43.19B | $5.49B | $48.68B | +3% | $7.24B | $1.17B | $4.59B | +13 | $3.31B |
| 2031 Q1E | $40.52B | $4.17B | $44.69B | +3% | $6.71B | $1.08B | $4.26B | +13 | $3.01B |
| 2031 Q2E | $43.30B | $5.34B | $48.64B | +3% | $7.24B | $1.17B | $4.60B | +13 | $3.19B |
| 2031 Q3E | $49.95B | $6.71B | $56.65B | +3% | $8.40B | $1.36B | $5.33B | +13 | $3.63B |
Every row is projected. A year-over-year change is shown only where the quarter it compares against exists — an em dash means there is no comparable quarter, not a flat year.
Model revisions
Assumptions are marked to reality as each quarter prints. Every change is appended here, with the fair value the model produced at the time, so the model's own history stays visible.
| Date | Changed | Fair value then | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-08-27 | all | $272.50 | First published, on the 2026 Q3 basis quarter - fiscal 2026 Q2, the 13 weeks ended 2 August 2026, reported 18 August 2026. Fourteen quarters of segment history: ten copied from 10-Q and 10-K segment tables, two derived as full year less nine months, and four fiscal 2023 quarters taken by the identity Primary equals consolidated. Seasonal factors derived over three complete fiscal-year windows for Primary and two rolling windows for Other. |