Lowe’s Companies (NYSE: LOW) reports second quarter fiscal 2026 results on Wednesday, August 19, with a conference call at 9 a.m. Eastern time. The company confirmed the date in a press release on August 12, and will host the webcast through the quarterly earnings section of its investor site.
The print matters well beyond home improvement. Lowe’s is the first large US retailer to report a full quarter in which two very large distribution acquisitions carry the top line while the underlying store business grows barely at all. Wall Street expects roughly $26.2 billion in revenue, up about 9.3% year over year, alongside earnings per share of about $4.24, down roughly 2%. A retailer growing sales by nine points while earnings fall is an unusual shape, and the explanation sits at the center of the quarter.
In short
- Date and time: Lowe’s reports Q2 fiscal 2026 on Wednesday, August 19, with the call at 9 a.m. ET, for the quarter ended August 1.
- The bar: consensus sits near $26.2bn in revenue (about +9.3%) and $4.24 in EPS (about -2%), against $24.0bn and adjusted EPS of $4.33 a year earlier.
- The real question: almost all the growth is acquired. Foundation Building Materials ($8.8bn) and Artisan Design Group ($1.325bn) are expected to add roughly $8bn of sales in fiscal 2026.
- Comparable sales are the number that moves the stock. Q1 came in at +0.6% against full-year guidance of flat to +2%.
- Tariff timing: the 50% Section 338 duties on certain Canadian goods take effect at 12:01 a.m. ET on the same morning Lowe’s reports, hours before management speaks.
What Lowe’s is reporting and when
Lowe’s will publish results for the 13 weeks ended August 1, 2026, then take analyst questions at 9 a.m. Eastern time on August 19. Supplemental materials are posted about 15 minutes before the call begins, which in practice is when the headline comparable sales figure reaches trading desks. A replay runs from noon Eastern on the day of the call. Investors who want the primary documents can find them on the Lowe’s investor relations site.
The company is large enough that the release functions as a macro datapoint. Lowe’s posted more than $86 billion in total sales in fiscal 2025 and employs roughly 300,000 people. It operates over 1,750 home improvement stores, 540 branches and 120 distribution centers, a footprint that now spans both retail shopping and business-to-business distribution.
That branch count is new in character rather than merely in size. Branches are the distribution and delivery nodes that came with the acquisitions of the past 18 months, and they serve professional contractors rather than weekend shoppers. Understanding the quarter requires separating those two businesses, because they are behaving very differently.
The report also opens the busiest week of the retail earnings calendar. Home Depot reports on Tuesday, August 18, before the market opens. Target reports Wednesday alongside Lowe’s, and Walmart closes the sequence on Thursday, August 20.
The numbers Wall Street has set as the bar
The consensus figures are unusually easy to misread this quarter, because the year over year comparison mixes organic performance with acquired revenue. The table below sets the expected print against what Lowe’s actually delivered in the same quarter a year earlier.
| Metric | Q2 FY2025 (reported) | Q2 FY2026 (consensus) | Implied change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total sales | $24.0bn | about $26.2bn | about +9.3% |
| Comparable sales | +1.1% | guided flat to +2% for the year | watch item |
| Diluted EPS | $4.27 | about $4.24 | about -2% vs adjusted |
| Adjusted diluted EPS | $4.33 | about $4.24 | about -2% |
| Net earnings | $2.4bn | not separately guided | margin dependent |
Revenue: the acquisition math
The roughly $2.2 billion of expected year over year revenue growth is largely purchased rather than earned on the sales floor. Lowe’s has told investors that Foundation Building Materials and Artisan Design Group together should contribute in the region of $8 billion of sales across fiscal 2026. Spread across four quarters, that contribution alone accounts for most of the growth the consensus expects in the second quarter.
This is visible in the first quarter, which was the first full period to include both businesses. Sales rose to $23.1 billion from $20.9 billion, a gain of more than 10%, while comparable sales rose only 0.6%. The gap between those two numbers is the acquisition effect, and it will recur until the deals annualize.
For analysts, the useful exercise on August 19 is to strip the acquired revenue out and ask what the legacy business did. Lowe’s has guided full-year sales to $92.0 billion to $94.0 billion, growth of 7% to 9%, on comparable sales of flat to +2%. The distance between those two ranges is the clearest statement management has made about how much of fiscal 2026 growth is bought.
Earnings: why EPS falls while sales rise
Falling earnings per share against rising revenue has three plausible drivers, and the call should clarify which dominates. The first is mix: distribution businesses generally carry lower gross margins than retail home improvement, so adding $8 billion of distribution revenue dilutes the blended margin even when the dollars are accretive.
The second is interest expense. Lowe’s funded an $8.8 billion acquisition in a period of elevated rates, and the carrying cost of that debt sits below the operating line. The third is integration and acquisition-related expense, which is why the company reports both diluted and adjusted diluted EPS and why the two diverged in prior quarters.
Full-year guidance frames the expected landing zone. Lowe’s has guided diluted EPS of $11.75 to $12.25 and adjusted diluted EPS of $12.25 to $12.75, with operating margin of 11.2% to 11.4% and adjusted operating margin of 11.6% to 11.8%. Any revision to those ranges will matter far more to the stock than the second quarter figure itself.
Comparable sales: the number that actually moves the stock
Comparable sales strip out new stores and, critically, acquisitions. They are the cleanest available read on whether American households are actually spending more on their homes. Lowe’s guided the full year to flat to +2% and delivered +0.6% in the first quarter, which management characterized as a fourth consecutive quarter of positive comps.
A second quarter comp meaningfully above 1% would suggest the do-it-yourself customer is re-engaging ahead of any easing in mortgage rates. A flat or negative comp would push the full-year guide onto the back half of the year, which is historically the weaker half for home improvement. The spring selling season falls in this quarter, so a soft comp here is harder to recover later.
Chief executive Marvin Ellison attributed the first quarter result to strength in Pro, appliances, online and home services. Whether that same list repeats on August 19 is a reasonable test of durability, because a narrowing list of growth drivers usually precedes a guidance cut. Online sales grew 15.5% in the first quarter, which is the one line where Lowe’s has been outrunning the category.
Why an $8.8bn distribution bet is on trial
The strategic story is a deliberate move away from the weekend shopper and toward the professional contractor. Lowe’s has spent just over $10 billion in roughly 18 months to buy its way into the professional supply chain, and the second quarter is one of the first clean windows into whether that capital is working.
What Foundation Building Materials brought
Lowe’s announced the acquisition of Foundation Building Materials on August 20, 2025 for $8.8 billion and completed it on October 9, 2025. FBM distributes interior building products through more than 370 locations across the United States and Canada. It is a genuine distribution business, selling drywall, ceilings, insulation and related products to trade customers on credit terms rather than to consumers at a checkout.
The strategic logic is access to what Lowe’s calls Pro planned spend, a total addressable market the company sizes at about $250 billion. Planned spend is the contractor’s scheduled, project-driven purchasing, as distinct from the unplanned run to a store for a missing part. Retailers have historically captured the second and lost the first, because planned spend flows through distributors on trade credit.
The integration questions are concrete. Analysts will want evidence of cross-selling between FBM branches and Lowe’s stores, progress on the trade credit platform, and whether FBM’s own volumes are holding up in a soft construction market. Cost synergy commentary will be scrutinized because the acquisition was expensive relative to the earnings it currently contributes.
What Artisan Design Group added
The smaller deal came first. Lowe’s agreed to acquire Artisan Design Group from The Sterling Group on April 14, 2025 for $1.325 billion, and closed on June 2, 2025 at an aggregate cash purchase price of about $1.3 billion. ADG provides design, distribution and installation of interior finishes including flooring, cabinets and countertops, serving homebuilders and property managers.
ADG carried roughly $1.8 billion of fiscal 2024 revenue and a national network of more than 3,200 specialized installers. Lowe’s said the deal expanded its total addressable market by approximately $50 billion. The installer network is arguably the more strategic asset, because installation labor has been the binding constraint on home improvement conversion for several years.
Together the two acquisitions reposition Lowe’s as a hybrid: part big-box retailer, part building products distributor, part installation services provider. That is a different company from the one investors valued three years ago, and the market has not yet decided what multiple it deserves.
How tariffs reach a home improvement shelf
Home improvement is one of the most tariff-exposed categories in US retail, because its bill of materials is dominated by metals, wood and imported appliances. Several distinct tariff programs now stack on the categories Lowe’s sells, and each has its own legal basis and rate structure.
| Program | Rate | Categories that touch home improvement | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Section 232 metals | 50% on articles made entirely or almost entirely of steel, aluminum or copper | Fasteners, tools, wire, roofing, HVAC components | In effect |
| Section 232 derivatives | 25% on products substantially composed of those metals | Appliances, fixtures, hardware | In effect |
| Section 232 wood and furniture | 25% on upholstered wooden products, kitchen cabinets and vanities; 10% on softwood timber and lumber | Cabinets, vanities, lumber | In effect, scheduled increase delayed into 2027 |
| Section 338 (Canada) | 50% on listed motor vehicle, alcohol and dairy goods | Limited direct overlap; excludes Section 232 goods | Effective 12:01 a.m. ET, August 19, 2026 |
| De minimis | Exemption suspended indefinitely | Low-value parcel imports of parts and accessories | Suspended by regulation as of June 24, 2026 |
The stacking rules matter as much as the headline rates. Goods already subject to Section 232 duties are excluded from the new Section 338 action, which limits double-counting but does not reduce the underlying metals burden. Products containing 15% or less of the covered metals fall outside Section 232 entirely, which is why component sourcing disclosures have become a routine part of retail earnings calls.
There is also a live refund question sitting under all of this. The Supreme Court struck down the tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act on February 20, 2026 in a 6-3 decision, and remanded the question of remedies to the Court of International Trade. Importers paid an estimated $175 billion under that authority, and several retailers have already recognized refunds.
Retailers that have booked those recoveries have seen real earnings effects. Dillard’s, for example, recorded a $37.2m tariff refund that lifted quarterly profit, a reminder that tariff accounting can flatter a print as easily as it can damage one. Whether Lowe’s has any comparable recovery to disclose is an open question for the call.
The 12:01 a.m. problem: Canada duties land the same morning
There is an unusual scheduling collision on August 19. The 50% Section 338 tariffs on specified Canadian goods take effect at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time that day, roughly nine hours before Lowe’s management takes analyst questions. The proclamations were signed on July 20, 2026 and cover close to $20 billion of annual imports across motor vehicles, alcoholic beverages and dairy.
The direct overlap with home improvement is limited, and deliberately so. The action excludes energy, potash, fish, critical minerals and goods already covered by Section 232, which is where most building materials sit. Softwood lumber from Canada, the category most relevant to Lowe’s, falls under the separate Section 232 wood program rather than the new action.
The indirect exposure is the more interesting question. Section 338 has never before been used to impose tariffs in its 96-year history, and its first application signals that the administration retains substantial tariff authority even after the Supreme Court closed the IEEPA route. For any retailer with North American supply chains, that changes the planning assumption from “tariffs are winding down” to “tariffs are being re-based on firmer legal ground.”
The full mechanics and category coverage are worth understanding for anyone importing from Canada, and we set them out when the 50% tariffs on Canadian goods were confirmed for August 19. Negotiations between Washington and Ottawa were still running in early August, with dairy quota management, provincial alcohol listings and auto counter-tariffs all reported to be on the table.
What the housing market is telling Lowe’s
Home improvement demand is a function of housing turnover more than of house prices. People renovate when they move, and they move when financing allows it. On both measures, the backdrop into this print is stable but subdued.
| Indicator | Latest reading | Direction | Why it matters to Lowe’s |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30-year fixed mortgage rate | 6.67% as of August 13, 2026 | Elevated, range-bound | Gates both moves and financed projects |
| Existing-home sales | 4.06m seasonally adjusted annual rate in July | Down 1.7% from June | Turnover drives renovation spend |
| Median existing-home price | $434,100 | Up about 2% year over year | Supports equity, not affordability |
| Normalized sales pace | About 5m per NAR | Roughly 20% below normal | Measures the size of the pent-up demand |
| Rate forecasts | About 6.4% (Fannie Mae) to 6.5% (MBA) into year-end | Little relief expected | Limits second-half comp recovery |
The key structural point is that the market is constrained rather than collapsing. An existing-home sales pace around 4 million against a normalized level near 5 million represents roughly a fifth of normal transaction volume sitting on the sidelines. That is a reservoir of deferred renovation demand, not demand that has been destroyed.
This is precisely why the Pro strategy has defensive logic. Professional demand, particularly from homebuilders and property managers, is less dependent on the discretionary consumer than DIY project spending. If the consumer stays cautious for another year, the acquired businesses are what carry Lowe’s through.
The counterargument is that construction-linked distribution is not actually defensive when housing starts and remodel permits soften. Both FBM and ADG sell into new construction and multifamily property management, which are themselves rate-sensitive. The second quarter is the first real test of whether the diversification is genuine or simply a different flavor of the same cycle.
Why the DIY and Pro split is widening
The two customer groups have decoupled since rates rose, and they now behave almost like separate industries. DIY spending is discretionary, cash-funded and highly sensitive to consumer confidence, which is why it fell first and has recovered slowest. Professional spending is contracted, project-scheduled and often financed by the property owner rather than the contractor.
That difference shows up in basket composition. A DIY customer buys paint, garden supplies and small hardware in single visits with no forward commitment. A professional customer buys drywall, flooring and cabinets against a build schedule, on trade credit, with delivery to a job site rather than pickup at a store.
Serving the second group well requires assets a big-box retailer does not naturally have: local branch inventory, jobsite delivery fleets, credit underwriting and installer capacity. That is precisely the list Lowe’s has been buying. The strategic bet is that these capabilities are hard enough to build that acquiring them at a premium beats waiting for the DIY consumer to return.
The risk is timing. Lowe’s committed the capital during a soft patch in construction, and if new residential activity stays weak into 2027, the acquired businesses will be absorbing interest expense without delivering the volume growth that justified the price.
Lowe’s versus Home Depot into the print
The two companies report a day apart and are being valued very differently. Home Depot reports on August 18 with consensus revenue near $47.5 billion and EPS near $4.71, against $4.68 a year earlier. Both companies guided fiscal 2026 comparable sales to flat to +2%, and both delivered +0.6% in the first quarter.
| Measure | Lowe’s (LOW) | Home Depot (HD) |
|---|---|---|
| Q2 report date | August 19, call 9 a.m. ET | August 18, before market open |
| Consensus revenue | about $26.2bn | about $47.5bn |
| Consensus EPS | about $4.24 | about $4.71 |
| Q1 FY2026 comp | +0.6% | +0.6% |
| FY2026 comp guidance | Flat to +2% | Flat to +2% |
| Forward earnings multiple | about 17x | about 23.5x |
| Year-to-date share performance | down about 10.5% | see company disclosure |
The valuation gap is the story. Lowe’s trades at roughly 17 times forward earnings against about 23.5 times for Home Depot, a discount of around a third for two businesses currently posting identical comparable sales growth and identical guidance ranges. The market is charging Lowe’s for integration risk, higher leverage and a less proven professional franchise.
That gap creates asymmetry into the print. A clean quarter with reaffirmed guidance and credible synergy detail gives Lowe’s more room to re-rate than Home Depot has. A guidance cut, by contrast, would confirm the discount and likely widen it.
Home Depot’s own report the previous morning will set the tone. Its management has already indicated that the second-half comparable sales lift depends partly on storm-related demand returning rather than on underlying recovery, and the company is operating under an interim leadership arrangement while chief executive Ted Decker is on medical leave. A weak Home Depot number on Tuesday tends to reset expectations for Lowe’s before it even reports.
What to watch on the call
Five disclosures will determine how the quarter is received, and they are not all in the press release. The first is the comparable sales figure with and without the acquisitions, which is the only honest measure of organic health.
The second is any change to the full-year ranges. Lowe’s affirmed sales of $92.0 billion to $94.0 billion and adjusted EPS of $12.25 to $12.75 in May, and reaffirming those in August would be a meaningful signal of confidence given the housing data since.
The third is quantified synergy progress on FBM. Investors have heard the strategic rationale for nearly a year; the second quarter is where they expect numbers attached to cross-selling, branch productivity and trade credit adoption.
The fourth is tariff commentary, specifically whether Lowe’s is absorbing duty costs, passing them through, or re-sourcing away from affected origins. The fifth is the interest expense line and any commentary on deleveraging, because the debt taken on for FBM is the mechanical reason EPS can fall while sales climb.
The question nobody wants asked directly
The uncomfortable question is whether $10 billion of acquisitions was the right use of capital versus buybacks or price investment in the core stores. Lowe’s has guided capital expenditure of up to $2.5 billion for the year on top of the deal spending, and it carries a dividend yielding about 2.3%.
Management will frame the answer around the roughly 18 million new homes the company expects the US to need by 2033, and around the $250 billion Pro planned spend opportunity. Those are long-horizon arguments being made to investors who are marking the stock down about 10.5% year to date.
What it means for retail and e-commerce operators
The lesson generalizes well beyond home improvement. Lowe’s is running the clearest live experiment in whether a consumer retailer can buy its way into business-to-business distribution when its own category stops growing. Several categories face the same choice.
The mechanics are instructive for any operator considering a similar move. Distribution revenue is lower margin but higher frequency, it comes with trade credit obligations rather than card payments, and it requires a different fulfillment network from retail stores. Those are three separate operational systems, and the integration cost shows up in exactly the places Lowe’s earnings are currently showing strain.
The tariff dimension is equally generalizable. Every retailer with an imported bill of materials is now managing a stack of overlapping duty programs with different legal bases, different exclusion rules and different stability. The pattern of this year is that specific authorities get struck down while the overall tariff burden persists through substitution to other statutes.
Finally, the calendar itself carries information. The week of August 18 through 20 concentrates four major US retail reports, and Walmart closes the sequence on August 20 with the broadest consumer read of the four. Taken together, these prints form the most complete picture of the tariff-era US consumer available this year, and Lowe’s occupies the most interesting position in the set because it is the only one whose growth is currently being bought rather than earned.
Frequently asked questions
When exactly does Lowe’s report Q2 2026 earnings?
Lowe’s reports second quarter fiscal 2026 results on Wednesday, August 19, 2026, with the analyst conference call at 9 a.m. Eastern time. Supplemental materials are typically posted about 15 minutes before the call, and a replay is available from noon Eastern the same day.
What are analysts expecting for revenue and EPS?
Consensus estimates point to revenue of about $26.2 billion, growth of roughly 9.3% year over year, and earnings per share of about $4.24, a decline of roughly 2%. In the comparable quarter a year earlier Lowe’s reported sales of $24.0 billion and adjusted diluted EPS of $4.33.
Why would earnings fall if sales are rising nearly 10%?
Most of the sales growth is acquired rather than organic, and distribution businesses carry lower margins than retail home improvement. Interest expense on the debt raised for the $8.8 billion Foundation Building Materials acquisition and ongoing integration costs also weigh on the earnings line.
What is the most important single number in the release?
Comparable sales, because it excludes both new stores and acquisitions and therefore isolates underlying demand. Lowe’s guided the full year to flat to +2% and delivered +0.6% in the first quarter, so a figure meaningfully above 1% would indicate genuine recovery.
How much did Lowe’s spend on acquisitions and what did it buy?
Lowe’s acquired Artisan Design Group for $1.325 billion, closing June 2, 2025, and Foundation Building Materials for $8.8 billion, closing October 9, 2025. ADG provides interior finish design, distribution and installation with more than 3,200 installers, while FBM distributes interior building products from more than 370 locations in the US and Canada.
Do the new Canadian tariffs directly hit Lowe’s?
The direct overlap is limited. The Section 338 action taking effect at 12:01 a.m. ET on August 19 covers listed motor vehicle, alcohol and dairy goods, and it excludes energy, potash, fish, critical minerals and products already subject to Section 232 duties, which is where most building materials including Canadian softwood lumber sit.
How does Lowe’s compare with Home Depot right now?
Both guided fiscal 2026 comparable sales to flat to +2% and both posted +0.6% in the first quarter, yet Lowe’s trades at roughly 17 times forward earnings against about 23.5 times for Home Depot. The discount reflects integration risk, higher leverage and a less established professional franchise rather than any current gap in comparable sales performance.
What does the housing data suggest for the second half?
Conditions are constrained rather than deteriorating sharply. Existing-home sales ran at a 4.06 million annual pace in July, down 1.7% from June and roughly a fifth below what the National Association of Realtors considers normal, while 30-year mortgage rates sat at 6.67% as of August 13 with forecasters expecting little relief before year-end.
Which other retailers report in the same week?
Home Depot reports Tuesday, August 18, before the open. Target reports Wednesday, August 19, the same day as Lowe’s, and Walmart reports Thursday, August 20, making it the densest week of the US retail earnings calendar this quarter.