Home Depot Warns That Housing Pressures Will Persist Next Year

Home Depot Inc. is offering cautious preliminary guidance for next year, a sign that the home-improvement retailer doesn’t anticipate the housing market to rebound in the short term.

The company expects comparable sales growth to be in a range of flat to up 2% for the year — below the average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Comparable sales are a key gauge of performance for the industry. Home Depot also gave projections for total sales growth that were below estimates.