There are no safe havens in the stock market. Every stock carries risk. But some less than others. This column features stocks that have shown one or more of the following characteristics: less volatility, better earnings, larger market caps, safe and increasing dividends. In these times of turmoil, our goal is to show readers better opportunities for investing with fewer risks.

November 11, 2011 - The Home Depot Inc. (HD-NYSE), together with its subsidiaries, operates as a home improvement retailer. The company's stores sell a range of building materials, home improvement products, and lawn and garden products to do-it-yourself, do-it-for-me (D-I-F-M), and professional customers.

As of November 2, 2011, it operated 2,246 stores primarily in 50 states in the U.S., the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, 10 Canadian provinces, Mexico, and China. The company was founded in 1978 and is based in Atlanta, Georgia.

Latest News:
Home Depot to announce earnings on November 15. The average estimate of analysts is for net income of 59 cents per share, a rise of 15.7% from the company's actual earnings for the same quarter a year ago. During the past three months, the average estimate has moved up from 57 cents. Between one and three months ago, the average estimate moved up. It has been unchanged at 59 cents during the last month. For the year, analysts are projecting profit of $2.35 per share, a rise of 15.8% from last year.

Past Earnings Performance: Last quarter, the company beat estimates by 4 cents, coming in at net income of 86 cents a share versus the estimate of profit of 82 cents a share. It marked the fourth straight quarter of beating estimates.

Analysts are bullish on this stock with 14 analysts rating it as a buy, none rating it as a sell and six rating it as a hold.

Expectations:

Fourth quarter earnings: 40 cents compared to 36 cents last year.
Full year: $2.35 vs $2.03 in 2010.
For 2012: $2.68

Important Numbers:
- Trailing P/E: 17.22
- Forward P/E: 14.26
- Price to sales ratio: .85
- Price to book ratio: 3.2
- Operating margin: 9.06%
- Profit margin: 5.23%
- Return on assets: 9.19%
- Return on equity: 19.09%
- Revenues for last 12 months: $68.78 billion
- Total cash: $2.55 billion
- Total cash per share: $1.63
- Total debt: $10.78 billion
- Total debt to equity: 59.10%
- Current ratio: 1.45
- Book value per share: $11.62
- Beta: .87
- 52 week change: 17.82%
- Shares Outstanding: 1.56 billion
- Float: 1.55 billion
- Held by institutions: 71.3%
- Annual Dividend: $1.00
- Yield: 2.7%

- Company Web site: www.homedepot.com

Ted Allrich