A tale of two companies/economies: Lowes Earnings vs Home Depot by Jeff Small, President of "Arbor Financial Author of new book, Turning Financial Planning, Right-Side Up." Lowes Earnings Lowes was one penny above expectation revenue slightly below projections. Same store sales and comps where 1.7% v’s expected 2.1%. 2.4 domestically relative to home depot which did 3.7%.    Month of January comp of 5.8% for Lowes positive sign. Lowes is narrowing the gap but home depot is still in the lead on the metrics. Lowes has a 5% deficit in operating margins with same store sales compared to Home depot. This should change with the new Home Depot management at Lowes. I pick Lowes to out perform HD over the next 12 months. Even though I believe we are at the top end of the range in upward stock movement for both. The market investors are overly concerned about the housing market and the home improvement sector as a whole. But this fears are not unfounded with the slowdown that is occurring in the real estate sector. Contrary to this rising wages and strong employment look good for both HD and Lowes. However, despite this we are seeing slowdowns in consumer spending in retail, restaurants and real estate. This ties in with the Democrats strategy of rolling back the economic reforms passed by the Trump Team. The problem is that we don't have to money to enact their programs. Free stuff is very expensive!