Kim Kahn

CEO Ted Decker said the company's results missed expectations primarily due to the lack of storms in the quarter, which resulted in greater-than-expected pressure in certain categories.

Comparable sales rose 0.2%, missing the consensus expectation for an increase of 1.4%.

EPS of 374 missed by 9 cents.

But looking ahead, Home Depot expects total sales to increase 3% for the year versus prior expectation for a rise of 2.8%.

In healthcare, Roche unit Genentech announced breast cancer drug Girodestrant reached the main goal in a Phase 3 trial, boosting shares of Alema Pharmaceuticals, which is advancing a similar treatment.

And Medtronic is up after it raised full-year outlook following fiscal Q2 numbers that exceeded street forecasts, driven mainly by its cardiovascular division.

In other news of note, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai sounded cautiously optimistic about AI, echoing other hyperscaler predictions and indeed Alan Greenspan.

In an interview with the BBC, he said the boom in investment has been extraordinary, but there is some irrationality.

We can look back at the internet right now.

There was clearly a lot of excess investment, but none of us would question whether the internet was profound, he said.

I expect AI to be the same, so I think it's both rational and there are elements of irrationality through a moment like this.

He warned an AI bubble burst would create broad vulnerability across industries, adding, no company is going to be immune, including us, but he voiced confidence Google would weather any turbulence.

And in the Wall Street Research Corner, Goldman Sachs has identified a new group of AI productivity beneficiaries, highlighting companies' best position to see earnings lift from automation-driven efficiency gains.

Strategist David Koston screened Russell 1000 stocks with both high exposure to AI-automatable wage bills and high labor cost intensity.

Then he narrowed the list to companies that discussed AI-driven productivity on their most recent earnings calls.

Among the standouts are Keycorp, Bank of America, Twilio, IBM, and Zillow.

The full list of stocks is in our story on Seeking Alpha, and yes, the 20% Black Friday sale is still running.

That link will be at the top of show notes.

Welcome to Seeking Alpha's Wall Street Lunch, our afternoon update on today's market action, news, and analysis.

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