Home Depot Stock Shares $81 Bil Success With Investors

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HD: Home Depot logo
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Home Depot

In the last five years, Home Depot (HD) stock has returned a notable $81 Bil back to its shareholders through cold, hard cash via dividends and buybacks. Let’s look at some numbers and compare how this payout power stacks up against the market’s biggest capital-return machines.

As it turns out, HD stock has returned the 16th highest amount to shareholders in history.

  HD S&P Median
Dividends $47 Bil $3.0 Bil
Share Repurchase $34 Bil $3.0 Bil
Total Returned $81 Bil $6.0 Bil
Total Returned as % of Current Market Cap 24.8% 19.1%

Why should you care? Because dividends and share repurchases represent direct, tangible returns of capital to shareholders. They also signal management’s confidence in the company’s financial health and ability to generate sustainable cash flows. And there are more stocks like that. Here is a list of the top 10 companies ranked by total capital returned to shareholders via dividends and stock repurchases.

Top 10 Stocks By Total Shareholder Return

Relevant Articles
  1. Home Depot Stock Pays Out $129 Bil – Investors Take Note
  2. Buy or Sell Home Depot Stock?
  3. Home Depot Stock Shares $130 Bil Success With Investors
  4. Ten-Year Tally: HD Hands Back $130 Bil to Shareholders
  5. Home Depot vs. Lowe’s: Why Pay a Premium for HD Stock?
  6. A Decade of Rewards: HD Returns $130 Bil to Investors

  Total Money Returned As % Of Current Market Cap via Dividends via Share Repurchases
AAPL $604 Bil 16.2% $89 Bil $515 Bil
GOOGL $328 Bil 9.7% $17 Bil $310 Bil
MSFT $265 Bil 9.7% $121 Bil $144 Bil
JPM $197 Bil 24.6% $84 Bil $113 Bil
XOM $167 Bil 23.8% $94 Bil $73 Bil
META $165 Bil 12.0% $10 Bil $155 Bil
BAC $140 Bil 39.5% $53 Bil $88 Bil
CVX $123 Bil 29.8% $67 Bil $57 Bil
WFC $116 Bil 47.3% $27 Bil $90 Bil
V $99 Bil 16.9% $22 Bil $77 Bil

For full ranking, visit Buybacks & Dividends Ranking

What do you notice here? The total capital returned to shareholders as a % of the current market cap appears inversely proportional to growth prospects for reinvestments. Stocks like Meta (META) and Microsoft (MSFT) are growing much faster, in a more predictable way, compared to the others, but they have returned a much lower fraction of their market cap to shareholders.

That’s the flip side to high capital returns. Sure, they are attractive, but you have to ask yourself the question: Am I sacrificing growth and sound fundamentals? With that in mind, let’s look at some numbers for HD. (see Buy or Sell Home Depot Stock for more details)

Home Depot Fundamentals

  • Revenue Growth: 7.5% LTM and 1.9% last 3-year average.
  • Cash Generation: Nearly 8.4% free cash flow margin and 13.0% operating margin LTM.
  • Recent Revenue Shocks: The minimum annual revenue growth in the last 3 years for HD was -2.3%.
  • Valuation: Home Depot stock trades at a P/E multiple of 22.4

  HD S&P Median
Sector Consumer Discretionary
Industry Home Improvement Retail
PE Ratio 22.4 23.6

   
LTM* Revenue Growth 7.5% 6.6%
3Y Average Annual Revenue Growth 1.9% 5.5%
Min Annual Revenue Growth Last 3Y -2.3% 0.4%

   
LTM* Operating Margin 13.0% 18.7%
3Y Average Operating Margin 13.7% 18.2%
LTM* Free Cash Flow Margin 8.4% 14.3%

*LTM: Last Twelve Months

The table gives a good overview of what you get from HD stock, but what about the risk?

HD Historical Risk

Home Depot isn’t risk-free either. It fell over 52% in the Dot-Com bubble and about 54% during the Global Financial Crisis. The stock also took a 38% hit amid the COVID selloff and dropped 35% in the inflation shock recently. Even smaller corrections, like in 2018, pulled it down 25%. Home improvement or not, when markets turn, big dips are part of the game.

But the risk is not limited to major market crashes. Stocks fall even when markets are good – think events like earnings, business updates, and outlook changes. Read HD Dip Buyer Analyses to see how the stock has recovered from sharp dips in the past.

The Trefis High Quality (HQ) Portfolio, with a collection of 30 stocks, has a track record of comfortably outperforming its benchmark that includes all 3 – the S&P 500, S&P mid-cap, and Russell 2000 indices. Why is that? As a group, HQ Portfolio stocks provided better returns with less risk versus the benchmark index; less of a roller-coaster ride, as evident in HQ Portfolio performance metrics.