“Ground Zero in…Deportation.” Home Depot Stock (NYSE:HD) Slips as Politics Get in the Way

It is perhaps the tritest of cliches these days that finding inexpensive under-the-table day labor is just as easy as a trip to consumer retail store Home Depot (HD). But cliches so often are cliches for a reason, as Home Depot has discovered to its detriment. Home Depot is proving a front line battleground in the push for deportation, and investors are not happy. Home Depot shares are down nearly 1.5% in Wednesday afternoon’s trading as a result.

Reports note that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) forces are specifically told to target Home Depot parking lots to stage raids, mostly because there are often large numbers of illegal immigrants found therein, or undocumented, if you prefer the term. Though those numbers are beginning to decline as said immigrants catch on and thus stay away, there are still some making appearances. And Home Depot itself is starting to catch backlash for their presence.

Some reports noted that in Los Angeles, the immigrants in question were told by store security to wait on the sidewalk. This makes sense, as a sidewalk is basically public property and keeps the store itself off the firing line. Thus, Home Depot, by its quiet but wholly unofficial approval, is regarded as both a “facilitator for an undocumented workforce” and also expected to “…do more to make these workers’ conditions better.”

Just Fine, Says Jim Cramer

Meanwhile, infamous market analyst Jim Cramer took a run at Home Depot and found very little to disapprove of therein. Cramer pointed out that the “…gardening season’s coming along fine,” and recommends that investors not be “constrained” by the fact that housing starts are falling off. Cramer advised a long-term perspective, recommending customers not think in terms of “seven days,” but rather, “…seven years.”

Further, Cramer notes, a lot of people are “…stuck in their homes,” which bodes well for home improvement stocks as homeowners seek to improve the space in which they reside rather than look for a new space. This is similar logic to what we saw during COVID-19, and has a fair chance of playing out much the same way this time.

Is Home Depot a Good Long-Term Buy?

Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on HD stock based on 19 Buys and five Holds assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 6.91% rally in its share price over the past year, the average HD price target of $428.77 per share implies 17.9% upside potential.

See more HD analyst ratings

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