Lowe’s vs. Home Depot: $1,000 each with dividends reinvested for 30 years

Put $1,000 into Lowe’s and $1,000 into Home Depot at the close of October 9, 1996, and reinvest every dividend in more shares. Thirty years later, at the close of October 9, 2026, the Lowe’s stake would be worth about $50,755 and the Home Depot stake about $40,713. The S&P 500, through the SPY fund with dividends reinvested, turned $1,000 into about $18,714, so both beat the index by more than double.

Home Depot first, then Lowe’s

Home Depot led for the first five years: it was ahead at every month-end from December 1996 to September 2001. By December 1999 its reinvested stake was worth $5,498. Lowe’s took the lead in October 2001 and kept it for 192 month-ends in a row, until September 2017. The lead then changed hands several times until May 2020, and Lowe’s has been ahead at every month-end since. Overall, Lowe’s led at 292 of the 361 month-ends.

Home Depot’s 1999 peak was followed by a long fall. With dividends reinvested, its stake lost 69.2% by January 2003 and only got back above the 1999 level in August 2012. On price alone, it fell 69.6% from December 1999 to February 2009 and regained the 1999 level in March 2013. Lowe’s worst stretch came later: its reinvested stake fell 52.0% from February 2006 to February 2009 and recovered by March 2012.

Dividends

Lowe’s raised its annual dividend total in every year of our data, from 1998 to 2025. Home Depot kept its quarterly dividend at $0.225 from late 2006 through 2009, so its annual total was flat in 2008 and 2009; it has risen every year since 2010. In February 2026 Home Depot raised its quarterly dividend 1.3%, to $2.33, and noted it was the “156th consecutive quarter the Company has paid a cash dividend.” Lowe’s paid $1.20 a quarter in the first half of 2026 and $1.25 from July.

Both dividends grew much faster than the share prices. Per share, Lowe’s 2025 dividend was 170.9 times its 1997 level, against 34.6 times for the price; Home Depot’s was 145.3 times, against 23.0 times for the price. For the original $1,000 investor who kept the cash, Lowe’s paid $5.12 in 1997 and $874.42 in 2025; Home Depot paid $5.01 and $727.91.

Where the two stand now

Both stocks are well below their records. Lowe’s closed at $186.00 on October 9, 2026, down 20.7% in a year and 35.3% below its record close of $287.39 on February 13, 2026. Home Depot closed at $290.74, down 23.0% in a year and 32.6% below its record close of $431.37 on December 6, 2024. Trailing dividend yields at the October 9 close: Lowe’s 2.61%, Home Depot 3.20%.

Reinvesting multiplied the Home Depot result by 1.37 compared with keeping the cash, and the Lowe’s result by 1.22: most of Lowe’s gain came from the share price. Over thirty years, the Lowe’s line finished 1.25 times the Home Depot line.

Two data fixes

The usual free price data has two errors in these histories, and we corrected both against the annual reports. It shows a Lowe’s payment in July 1998 more than eight times too large; the 10-K for fiscal 1998 shows $0.12 a share for the year, or $0.03 a quarter after that year’s split. And it lists Home Depot’s November 2001 payment twice, a day apart; the 10-K for fiscal 2001 shows $0.17 for the year. Both companies’ fiscal years end in late January or early February; the figures here are by calendar year of the ex-dividend date.

Method: no taxes or trading costs, fractional shares allowed, dividends reinvested at the close of the ex-dividend date, and cash kept aside earns nothing. The SPY result is net of the fund’s fee. The Lowe’s and Home Depot pages show each company’s full dividend history, and the dividends page ranks U.S. companies by consecutive years of increases. Not investment advice.