While Home Depot has made some moves towards improving customer service, announcing greater staff training and its expansion into the latest bathroom fixtures and rugs. Many analysts are too quick to judge these shifts in business tactics. HD's move into bathroom fixtures and rugs is aimed right at " Mrs. I want a better looking home." Its not men who have concern over bathrooms, except that the toilet will flush properly and few mean really care about the rugs that go in them.

But Mr. Nardelli's not Home Depot. Nardelli's assembled a small army of key management while quietly managing to combine new thinking with the old. His tactic is not a new one but it's a task few would undertake if given that opportunity.

Axcess Business News believes the market pundits and institutional investors are too quick to judge this company's China supermarket display cases wholesale future and added Home Depot's stock to its Stock Guide's "best picks column" the last week of Dec 2002 with a "very positive" view towards the stock. Axcess Business News is holding that view in an even stronger light in lieu of its share's recent downturn this Friday.

The company blamed weaker-than-expected sales of hardware and power tools over the holidays for its latest troubles, as the stock fell 14 percent to its lowest level in nearly five years on Friday, a day after it warned that fiscal 2002 earnings would fall short of earlier estimates and that sales at stores open at least a year could drop as much as 10 percent in the fourth quarter.

Home Depot is not alone in lower retail sales for the 4th quarter. The entire retail sector lagged through the Christmas season with few exceptions, like JC Penny's (NYSE: JCP), which had also been one of the companies Axcess Business News had selected for its "best picks column", ahead of Bear Stearns' recent applaud by nearly two months. Axcess Business News dropped coverage of JCP last week as Stearn's released its views as stated above, supporting the "best picks column's" 18th week of advancing market picks successfully.