The Home Depot, Inc. - HD

Can you imagine a world without Home Depot? I can't. Imagine reverting back to driving from establishment to establishment to find that one lug nut or particular piece of lumber. What a bummer. Well, those days are gone. The Home Depot has arrived and in my humble opinion, will be around forever. There is no denying that. For that one reason, I believe the Home Depot, stock ticker HD, is one of the safest stocks to purchase within your Roth IRA stock portfolio. During your retirement years you need stable income and a company which will not go out of business out of the blue. With a current 2.61% dividend yield, HD is paying you to hold their shares. They have paid a dividend since September 1st, 1987!
The Home Depot sells an assortment of building materials, home improvement and lawn and garden products and provide a number of services. HD stores average approximately 105,000 square feet of enclosed space, with approximately 24,000 additional square feet of outside garden area. As of January 30, 2010, they had 2,248 stores located throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Guam, Canada, China and Mexico.
Some people may like going to a mom and pop hardware stores to pick up their product of choice, but the times they are a changing. Home Depot is thee home improvement retailer. True, Lowe's is a solid competitor, however their market cap is 1/2 of Home Depots and their dividend yield is currently 0.5% less.  
HD is the hardware industry leader and pays that healthy, sweet quarterly dividend. In my neighborhood,  their stores are filled with customers on the weekends while Lowe's are ghost towns. It is apparent that customer's pent-up demand from housing woes over the past few year should help sales growth in future years. Home owners are beginning to construct additions on their houses and willing to spend their cash. HD's relative strength index is high and with the return to a strong housing market it may give home improvement product suppliers like Home Dept the needed push for higher stock valuation.
In the spring time they sell plants and flowers like it's gold. In the winter they have the shovel and snow-blower game on lock. And during the spring and fall their lawnmowers don't stay on the shelves for very long. I think of HD as a diversified company within each store. You can purchase something as small as a thumb tack or as large as a fridge or wood from their lumber yard.
Home Depot has improved their supply chain operations since the Great Recession through real-time distribution and are definitely working hard on customer service. It shows! The crew at my local Home Depot are so pleasant and eager to assist. Home Depot is the lifeblood of construction. When the housing market makes a full recover, Home Depot will be there to facilitate.
Click here to read Home Depot's 2010 annual report. A great tool to gain some insight into this dividend winner! Also, check out how many institutions hold HD shares in their portfolio, click here! Feel free to watch the cool videos below about Home Depot. I love the place. Hold long term and let your dividend payments grow by reinvesting within a Roth IRA! Thanks for your time.