5 Best Housing Stocks of 2021

3. The Home Depot, Inc. (NYSE: HD)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 68

The Home Depot, Inc. (NYSE:HD) is the largest home improvement retail company. It is ranked third on our list of the 11 best housing stocks of 2021. The stock has returned over 23.24% to investors over the course of the past year.

On May 18, The Home Depot, Inc. (NYSE:HD) posted earnings for the first quarter of 2021, reporting earnings per share of $3.86, beating estimates by $0.81. The revenue over the period was around $37.50 billion, up 32.70% year-over-year.

At the end of the first quarter of 2021, 68 hedge funds in the database of Insider Monkey held stakes worth $4.36 billion in The Home Depot, Inc. (NYSE:HD). Out of the hedge funds being tracked by Insider Monkey, billionaire Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management has the most valuable stake in The Home Depot, Inc. (NYSE:HD) as of the end of the first quarter of 2021 to around $2.15 billion, comprising 1.51% of its total 13F portfolio. 

Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management increased its stake in The Home Depot, Inc. (NYSE:HD) by 3% in the first quarter of 2021, and by 4% to $2.33 billion in the second quarter of 2021.

Ensemble Capital, an investment management firm, mentioned The Home Depot, Inc. (NYSE:HD) in its Q1 2021 investor letter. Here is what Ensemble Capital had to say:

“Notable contributors to the Fund’s returns this quarter (included) Home Depot. Home Depot (8.9% weight in the Fund) continued to benefit from a red-hot housing and home improvement market, delivering record financial performance in 2020. As a high return on invested capital business, any step-up in growth results in considerable shareholder value creation. While 2021 comparable sales may not yield impressive headline results, we believe there are several secular tailwinds supporting continued housing investment, including millennials entering prime household formation/peak earnings years, relatively low interest rates, and government policies.

Home Depot (8.9% weight in the Fund): The big orange sign of Home Depot is a familiar sight for homeowners across the country. Despite the rise of Amazon, Home Depot has generated outstanding results for shareholders during the rise of eCommerce, even as Home Depot’s end market in housing suffered the worst collapse in a century. Over the last fifteen years, a period which began at the peak of the housing bubble, Home Depot’s stock has generated annual returns of 17% a year, outperforming the S&P 500 by approximately 7% a year. (Click here to see the full text)