Dow Today: Home Depot (HD) Leads The Day Higher, Caterpillar (CAT) Lags

Editor's Note: TheStreet ratings do not represent the views of TheStreet's staff or its contributors. Ratings are established by computer based on metrics for performance (which includes growth, stock performance, efficiency and valuation) and risk (volatility and solvency). Companies with poor cash flow or high debt levels tend to earn lower ratings in our model.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) closed down 205.0 points (-1.5%) at 13,343. During the day, 805.5 million shares of the 30 Dow components have changed hands vs. an average daily trading volume of 567.2 million. The NYSE advances/declines ratio closed at 670 issues advancing vs. 2,345 declining with 96 unchanged.

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The Dow component that led the way higher today was Home Depot (NYSE:HD), which sported a nine-cent gain (+0.1%) bringing the stock to $61.89. Volume for Home Depot ended the day at 10.8 million shares traded vs. an average daily trading volume of 8.4 million shares.

Home Depot has a market cap of $92.54 billion and is part of the services sector and retail industry. Shares are up 47% year to date as of Thursday's close. The stock's dividend yield sits at 1.9%.

The Home Depot, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates as a home improvement retailer. The company's stores sell building materials, and home improvement and lawn and garden products to do-it-yourself, do-it-for-me (at D-I-F-M), and professional customers. The company has a P/E ratio of 22, equal to the average retail industry P/E ratio and above the S&P 500 P/E ratio of 17.7.

TheStreet Ratings rates Home Depot as a buy. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its solid stock price performance, impressive record of earnings per share growth, revenue growth, notable return on equity and increase in net income. We feel these strengths outweigh the fact that the company shows weak operating cash flow.

• You can view the full Home Depot Ratings Report.

Holding the Dow back today was Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT), which lagged the broader Dow index with a $2.76 decline (-3.2%) bringing the stock to $83.86. This single loss lowered the Dow Jones Industrial Average by 20.89 points or roughly accounting for 10.2% of the Dow's overall loss. Volume for Caterpillar ended the day at 9.8 million shares traded vs. an average daily trading volume of 7.5 million shares.

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Caterpillar has a market cap of $56.59 billion and is part of the conglomerates sector and conglomerates industry. Shares are down 4.4% year to date as of Thursday's close. The stock's dividend yield sits at 2.4%.

Caterpillar Inc. manufactures and sells construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines, industrial gas turbines, and diesel-electric locomotives worldwide. The company has a P/E ratio of 9.7, equal to the average conglomerates industry P/E ratio and below the S&P 500 P/E ratio of 17.7.

TheStreet Ratings rates Caterpillar as a buy. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its robust revenue growth, notable return on equity, impressive record of earnings per share growth, compelling growth in net income and increase in stock price during the past year. We feel these strengths outweigh the fact that the company has had generally high debt management risk by most measures that we evaluated.

• You can view the full Caterpillar Ratings Report.

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