Home improvement giant Home Depot (HD) has had some, well, interesting luck when it comes to partnership arrangements lately. Its recent partnership effort with Wren Kitchens featured said company filing Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Now, though, Home Depot is getting together with Disney (DIS) to offer a new can of WD-40 (WDFC) that celebrates the return of King of the Hill to Hulu. Investors seemed less than pleased, and Home Depot shares slipped modestly in Friday’s trading.
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Long-time King of the Hill fans will undoubtedly remember the time when it was revealed that main character Hank Hill carried not only a can of WD-40 on his tool belt, but also a smaller can of WD-40 to loosen the cap on his primary can. It is that spirit of lubricant-related fun that is bringing Home Depot to offer a limited-edition can of WD-40, available at Home Depot locations starting June 1.
With Season 14 recently—and successfully—coming back to Hulu, and the show subsequently renewed for another three seasons beyond that, the idea of a little merch is not necessarily out of line. And WD-40 was a fairly big part of the show. Granted, it might not have been as big a part as propane was, but WD-40 was certainly involved. And the release of the new can will allow customers to celebrate that same spirit of getting things done, via a cartoon Texan.
Spring With Music
Home Depot also took advantage of the mostly improving weather of spring to roll out “Garden Center Sessions,” a kind of music festival that takes place entirely in Home Depot garden centers. The event appears limited to one garden center in Dallas, Texas, though it is a safe bet that there are probably plenty of local bands out there who would have appreciated an invite.
Anyway, this particular event featured Brothers Osborne, an “…award-winning country duo” who played the Home Depot garden center on the first day of spring. Why Home Depot held on to this particular news item until now is somewhat unclear, but the fact that 64% of respondents in a recent Home Depot study believe that spring does not really start until they begin home projects may have something to do with that.
Is Home Depot a Good Long-Term Buy?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on HD stock based on 17 Buys and three Holds assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 9.8% loss in its share price over the past year, the average HD price target of $425.06 per share implies 30.69% upside potential.
