Home Depot Beats Q1, Oil Cools, Yields Ease — Markets Idle Into FOMC Minutes and Nvidia

Georgi Kuzmanov Senior Equity Analyst & Founder

Tuesday opens with two pieces of marginal good news that the bond market is willing to acknowledge but the equity tape is not yet willing to celebrate. Home Depot reported Q1 results before the bell with a +7.09% EPS surprise on top of a slight revenue beat, the cleanest single datapoint we have had this quarter on whether the higher-income discretionary consumer is absorbing the rate shock. Brent crude has eased 1.64% to $110.26 as the weekend’s UAE Barakah headlines fade and President Trump’s “delay” framing on Iran holds for a second session. The 10-year Treasury yield has ticked down to 4.60% from yesterday’s 4.631% one-year high, and S&P 500 futures are roughly flat after Monday’s split-tape session.

None of this changes the week’s set-piece. Nvidia reports fiscal Q1 2027 after the close tomorrow, with consensus near $78 billion in revenue and $1.77 in non-GAAP EPS; the options market is pricing an implied move of 8–10% on the print. FOMC May meeting minutes drop tomorrow at 2:00 PM ET, a release that could either confirm the bond market’s recent walk-back of cut probabilities or surprise dovishly. Today’s U.S. macro calendar is light—Home Depot is the only consequential event on the print side, with pending home sales as a secondary release. The result is a session that will be defined more by positioning than by news, with the cash close on Tuesday setting the levels into Wednesday’s double catalyst.

Beneath the calmer surface, the chip complex remains the structural risk. Seagate fell nearly 7% Monday after CEO Dave Mosley said at a JPMorgan conference that building new factories would “take too long”—a comment that compounded Micron’s 5.95% drop on the China H200 headline and reinforced the de-risking trade running ahead of Nvidia. Premarket today has Nvidia roughly flat to slightly higher, but the cash-session tape will key on whether bid returns to the chip leaders or whether the rotation into industrials and defensives that lifted the Dow on Monday extends.

Pre-Market Snapshot

Overnight Developments

Home Depot Beats — The First Big-Box Read on the Consumer

Home Depot released Q1 2026 results before the bell with adjusted EPS that posted a +7.09% surprise versus the $3.41 consensus, on revenue of approximately $41.6 billion that came in roughly +0.16% ahead of estimates. Net sales rose about 4.4% year-over-year, and management affirmed fiscal 2026 guidance of 2.5–4.5% sales growth with comparable sales flat to +2% and diluted EPS approximately flat to +4%. The 9:00 AM ET earnings call is the next moving piece; commentary on Pro versus DIY mix, on mortgage-rate sensitivity in remodeling demand, and on category-level trends in big-ticket discretionary will define how the call lands.

The premarket reaction has been muted. HD is roughly −0.4% in early trade despite the beat—a tell that the buy-side had already positioned for a strong print and that the bar for an upside surprise was higher than the headline number alone. The cleaner signal is the read-through. Home Depot serves the highest-income half of the U.S. consumer; a 7% EPS beat on a quarter that captures the worst of the rate-shock effect on remodeling demand is genuinely constructive for Target (Wed AM), Lowe’s (Wed AM), Walmart (Thu AM) and TJX (Thu AM). The retail print risk skews to the upside this week, even as the equity tape stays cautious into Nvidia.

Oil Cools as Iran “Delay” Holds

Brent crude has eased $1.84 to $110.26, down 1.64% from the weekend’s spike, and WTI is back near $102 from Monday’s $103+ intraday print. The proximate cause is President Trump’s Fox News comment Monday afternoon that he would delay direct military action against Iran, which pulled the immediate geopolitical premium out of the front of the oil curve. The UAE Barakah drone strike remains an open file—authorities have confirmed no radiation leak and no reactor damage, but the symbolic weight of an attack on a Gulf-state nuclear installation has not been fully discounted.

This is the highest-probability swing factor for the rest of the week. A second incident in the Gulf or any direct U.S. military move would reverse Monday afternoon’s cooling and push Brent back through $112; conversely, sustained diplomatic progress could see crude fade toward $105 in a session. Energy is therefore both the day’s long-positioning candidate (the structural inflation impulse remains alive while Brent stays above $108) and the day’s mean-reversion candidate (any de-escalation headline reprices the entire sector in minutes).

Seagate Spillover Into the Chip Complex

Seagate’s near-7% drop Monday on CEO Dave Mosley’s “factories take too long” comment is the underappreciated single-stock catalyst entering Tuesday. The market read his remark as evidence that the storage and memory ecosystem is unable to scale production to meet AI-driven demand on a timeline that justifies current multiples. Combined with Micron’s 5.95% drop Monday on the China H200 headline, the message into Nvidia’s print Wednesday is that any soft language on supply, gross margin or China demand will be priced harshly. Pre-NVDA chip-block de-risking is now the most consensus trade on the desk.

Global Markets

Asia traded mixed overnight as the moderation in oil prices and Trump’s “delay” framing offered partial relief from Monday’s broad selloff. Japan’s Nikkei 225 finished modestly higher, recovering a portion of Monday’s 1.48% drop to 60,501.62; Hong Kong’s Hang Seng and the Shanghai Composite both posted small gains; India’s Sensex bounced as the rupee firmed against the dollar on the easier crude tape. Australia’s ASX 200 stayed under pressure on its heavy materials weighting, with the energy bid only partially offsetting the broader risk-off carryover.

Europe opened with a small bid that has held into mid-morning. Germany’s DAX is up around 0.3%, France’s CAC 40 modestly higher, Italy’s FTSE MIB roughly flat, and the U.K.’s FTSE 100 mixed as oil majors give back a small piece of Monday’s rally. European bank stocks are firmer on the easier U.S. yield environment, and Stoxx 600 banks are tracking modestly positive. Auto and luxury names are mixed: Stellantis, BMW and Mercedes are under pressure on lingering tariff concerns, while LVMH is benefiting from a softer dollar tone.

Macro and Rates

The Treasury curve has shifted lower in parallel overnight. The 10-year is at 4.60%, down approximately 3 basis points from Monday’s 4.631% one-year-high close, and the 2-year is hovering near 4.08%, off Monday’s 4.102% 14-month high. The 2s/10s spread holds near +52 basis points, still in a bear-steepening posture but no longer extending. The most important variable for Tuesday is whether yields can hold the 4.55–4.62% band into Wednesday’s FOMC minutes release; a clean range trade would let equity multiples absorb the recent yield move without further compression.

The dollar is fractionally softer, with EUR/USD ticking up toward 1.085 and the trade-weighted DXY easing modestly. Gold is essentially flat near $4,570 per ounce; the safe-haven complex is consolidating after Monday’s small bid. Bitcoin remains around $76,400, holding the 2-week low without further deterioration. The cross-asset signal is consistent: a small unwind of Monday’s risk-off positioning, but not yet a full risk-on reversal.

Corporate News

Home Depot (HD) beat Q1 EPS by +7.09% on $41.6B revenue (slight beat); affirmed fiscal 2026 guidance. Keysight Technologies (KEYS) reports after the close today. Toll Brothers (TOL) reports today; commentary on luxury-housing demand and mortgage-rate sensitivity is the swing factor for the entire homebuilder complex. Trip.com (TCOM), which reported Monday before the bell, continues to digest its quarter with the stock down modestly into Tuesday’s session.

Looking past today, Target (TGT), Lowe’s (LOW) and TJX all report Wednesday morning, Nvidia (NVDA) reports Wednesday after the close, and Walmart (WMT) reports Thursday morning. Sell-side desks have left ratings and price targets largely unchanged into the chip print; expect a wave of post-NVDA upgrade/downgrade activity Thursday morning regardless of how the print lands. The analyst-action queue is otherwise quiet today.

Premarket Movers

Economic Calendar

The light calendar is the day’s most important macro feature. With no high-impact U.S. data to provide a binary catalyst, the tape will move on second-order signals: Home Depot’s 9:00 AM ET commentary, the trajectory of Brent crude through the European afternoon, any further Iran-related headlines, and positioning into Wednesday’s FOMC minutes plus Nvidia. Thin-data sessions during stress periods tend to amplify positioning-driven moves, particularly in the final hour as CTAs and risk-parity funds rebalance into the close.

The AlphaEdge Prediction

Today is a positioning day, not a catalyst day. The Home Depot beat removes one tail risk; the easier oil tape removes another; the cooler 10-year removes a third. None of these are enough to drive a real-money buy program ahead of Wednesday afternoon’s double catalyst (FOMC minutes at 2:00 PM ET, Nvidia after the close). The base case is a tight, slightly bullish session with sector rotation rather than index direction doing most of the work.

Base case (55% probability): The S&P 500 trades a 7,395–7,440 range with a small upward bias. Energy fades modestly as crude eases; defensives and dividend-yield Financials hold their bid from Monday; high-beta semis attempt a small bounce but cannot regain leadership. The 10-year holds 4.58–4.62%. VIX drifts between 17 and 18. S&P closes flat to +0.4%.

Bull case (25% probability): Home Depot’s call delivers constructive Pro-segment language and an upbeat read on big-ticket discretionary; the 10-year breaks 4.55%; semis see a meaningful relief bounce as buyers re-engage before Nvidia. S&P pushes to 7,450–7,470, the VIX collapses below 17, and the chip block (NVDA, MU, AVGO, AMD) leads a 1–2% Nasdaq 100 rally. The setup into Wednesday becomes constructive rather than tense.

Bear case (20% probability): A second Gulf incident or hawkish Fed speaker headline reverses the morning’s easier tone. Brent retraces back through $112; the 10-year pushes back to 4.65%+; semis fade into the close on accelerated de-risking ahead of Nvidia. S&P breaks below 7,380 and tests the 7,350–7,360 support zone. VIX pushes back through 19.

Georgi Kuzmanov

Senior Equity Analyst & Founder at AlphaEdge. Columbia University MSFE (2011–2013). Covering equities, macro, and geopolitics for serious investors.