ATLANTA—The home improvement sector, and specifically The Home Depot, continues to stand as one of the strongest in retail. The nation's largest home-improvement chain reported 5.5% gains year over year in same-store sales for the first quarter of fiscal 2017, compared to a FactSet estimate of 4%, while diluted earnings at $1.67 per share were up 16% Y-O-Y and beat Thomson Reuters consensus estimates by five cents per share.

Q1's sales tallied $23.9 billion across Home Depot's US, Canadian and Mexican stores, a 4.9% increase from the year-ago period. Sales per square foot for the three months ended April 30 were $394.17, for a comparable Y-O-Y increase of 4.6%.

Craig Menear, Home Depot's chairman, CEO and president, notes that the quarterly results reflect “broad-based growth across our interconnected platform and all geographies.” The company said Tuesday it had increased its full-year earnings guidance to $7.15 per diluted share, up from $7.13 per share and representing an 11% gain from fiscal 2016, while maintaining its projections of 4.6% Y-O-Y gains for both sales generally and same-store sales.

Home improvement's strength was reflected in TJX Cos.' mixed report for its own Q1 results. Although same-store sales for the retailer's T.J. Maxx and Marshall's brands were flat on a Y-O-Y basis for the three months that ended April 29, its HomeGoods brand posted 3% gains, beating a FactSet consensus of 2.4%. TJX added 17 HomeGoods locations during the quarter, bringing the brand's domestic footprint to 14.5 million square feet.

“There are no near-term signs that the housing market will weaken,” Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail, wrote in a client note quoted by Reuters on Tuesday. “As such, we believe this will continue to provide a benefit across the remainder of this fiscal year.”

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Home Depot Beats Street at $1.67 EPS

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