Lowe's Has Underperformed Rival Home Depot in 1 Key Metric for 15 Years. But It's Quickly Closing the Gap.
Home-improvement retailers Lowe's (NYSE: LOW) and The Home Depot are alike in many regards. However, for 15 years, Lowe's has trailed Home Depot significantly when it comes to profitability.
There are different ways to measure profitability, but a particularly important one is a company's operating margin. This is the profit produced by core business operations, before other considerations such as taxes and interest are factored in.
As the chart below shows, Home Depot's operating margin has been superior to that of Lowe's for about 15 years now:
Source Fool.com