The Dividend Daily

Despite the many calls on Real Estate finally bottoming, investors are faced with the stark reality that we are most likely a few more years away from housing prices beginning to stabilize. Many homeowners will face the fact they better like where they live now, if not, fix it the way they want it. That brings us to our look at Lowes (LOW), the No. 2 U.S home improvement retailer. The company is currently sitting at 7-year lows and we are not excited by its prospects. Dividend.com currently does not recommend the stock. We do recommend Home Depot (HD), although we are evaluating it for a possible downgrade. One of the main deciding factors between the two is the size of the current dividend. At Friday's closing price Lowes sports a 1.53% dividend yield compared to Home Depot's 3.75% yield. Focusing on Lowes right now, we take a look at their current plan to deal with the slowdown they are seeing. The company Lowe's has reduced its 2008 new store opening plan from 140 to 120 stores and will continue to closely scrutinize its capital spending. Dealing with commodity increases has been tough, but Lowes believes it will eventually be able to pass some of that onto consumers in the latter part of this year. That may be wishful thinking in this current economic malaise. We presently would not be surprised to see Lowes take a dip down to the $15 price area, which at that point, we'll need to take another look to see of the bottom has gotten closer. Lowes Corp (LOW) is not recommended at this time and it currently holds a Dividend.com rating of 3.3 out of 5 stars. Be sure to visit our complete recommended list of the Best Dividend Stocks as well as a detailed explanation of our ratings system here.

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