It's like DIY Christmas
The "House Hype" is real... Not to be confused with Tik Tok-famous Hype House, where teens with millions of followers dance in bathrooms. The "House Hype" refers to the period of time during which we realized we'd be spending all our waking and non-waking hours in one place: the house. One beneficiary of that period was Lowe's — the big home improvement retailer is doing the Renegade dance to some hype-y numbers:
But... Lowe's earnings probably would have looked very different (read: bad) if it wasn't blessed with an "Essentials Club" membership. Some retailers got it (cough, Walmart), some didn't (cough, Kohl's).
The House Hype might be over... Lowe's CEO warned that such high sales growth likely isn't sustainable, and that sales could be moderate going forward (Lowe's stock dropped 4% — there's only so many times you can repaint a kitchen). That's the challenging part of success: it makes it harder to impress investors in the next quarter. Plus, if the housing market suffers on the currently staggering unemployment rate, Lowe's may too.