As I had presented last week, home improvement has been largely immune to the infamous Amazon ( AMZN ) threat as face-to-face, in-store experience seems to matter much more to customers in this space than it does in other retail sub-sectors.

On the opex side, I expect cost control to play a key role in driving net earnings higher, and would be pleasantly surprised if SG&A as a percentage of revenues once again came in lower than it did last year.

As early as March 2017 , I began arguing that HD looked to be a better play than LOW in the home improvement sector as a result of more conservative debt levels and more enticing and shareholder-friendly dividend policy.

But for the long-term investor, solid fundamentals, macro tailwinds and comparatively lower multiples are factors worth taking a closer look into.

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