Bank of America expects Home Depot to gain more than Lowe’s from stronger professional demand in Q2

Home Depot is likely to benefit more than Lowe’s in the second quarter from demand tied to professional customers, according to a market note cited by Yahoo Finance on Aug. 10, 2026. The report attributes the outlook to Bank of America’s view that Home Depot’s business is more exposed to the “pro” customer segment than Lowe’s is, which could matter as the market shifts between contractor-led building activity and do-it-yourself spending.

In hardware retail, the split between professional and consumer demand can influence both near-term sales trends and how retailers manage inventory and staffing. Professional customers typically include contractors, installers, and other trades that buy larger volumes and may show different timing than individual homeowners who renovate in smaller, more intermittent baskets.

Bank of America’s expectation, as summarized by the Yahoo Finance post, centers on the idea that professional demand is expected to be a relative tailwind in Q2 and that Home Depot’s higher pro exposure would allow it to translate that demand into results more effectively than Lowe’s. The same framing implies that if the pro category keeps outperforming consumer or repair-and-maintenance patterns, the competitive impact would fall more heavily on Home Depot than on its larger category peer.

The report does not, in the information provided here, specify the size of the expected advantage in Home Depot’s quarterly performance relative to Lowe’s. It also does not state whether the bank changed ratings, what assumptions were used, or any forward-looking metrics such as same-store sales or segment-level growth that would quantify the pro mix effect.

That said, the basic mechanism is straightforward: if professional spending is holding up better than consumer demand, retailers with greater reliance on trade customers often face less risk that fluctuations in homeowner discretionary renovation plans will dominate overall performance. In practice, that can show up in product mix, timing of bulk orders, and the ability to serve jobs that require faster replenishment.

For investors, analyst commentary like this is often less about a single quarter’s topline and more about what it indicates for expectations about category momentum. A pro-tilted outlook can also influence how analysts model margins, because inventory costs, promotional intensity, and fulfillment patterns can differ between contractor purchases and do-it-yourself shopping.

Still, the public details available in the Yahoo Finance post as provided to us appear limited. The report does not supply specific numbers, such as an earnings contribution, percentage sales growth, or a revised target price. It also does not spell out which datasets or survey indicators Bank of America used to infer pro demand strength, nor does it provide company management commentary to corroborate the bank’s thesis.

Going forward, the key check will be whether both retailers’ quarterly updates reflect the pro-versus-consumer divergence implied by the note. Attention will likely turn to any disclosures about pro sales trends, management commentary on contractor demand, and whether demand strength in the trade channel offsets any weakness in consumer renovations. Any later follow-up from banks or the companies themselves that adds quantification would be important for assessing how durable the pro mix advantage is for the quarter.

What’s missing is the detail needed to turn a directional view into a precise forecast. With the current information, the most that can be responsibly stated is that Bank of America, as reported by Yahoo Finance, expects Home Depot to be positioned to benefit more than Lowe’s from professional demand in Q2, without providing the magnitude of that benefit or other underlying assumptions in the material available here.