Home Depot (NYSE: HD) is one of the stocks most watched by Zacks.com visitors lately. So, it might be a good idea to review some of the factors that might affect the near-term performance of the stock. Over the past month, shares of this home-improvement retailer have returned -2.3%, compared to the Zacks S&P 500 composite's +5.1% change. During this period, the Zacks Building Products - Retail industry, which Home Depot falls in, has lost 1.3%. The key question now is: What could be the stock's future direction? While media releases or rumors about a substantial change in a company's business prospects usually make its stock 'trending' and lead to an immediate price change, there are always some fundamental facts that eventually dominate the buy-and-hold decision-making. Earnings Estimate Revisions Here at Zacks, we prioritize appraising the change in the projection of a company's future earnings over anything else. That's because we believe the present value of its future stream of earnings is what determines the fair value for its stock. We essentially look at how sell-side analysts covering the stock are revising their earnings estimates to reflect the impact of the latest business trends. And if earnings estimates go up for a company, the fair value for its stock goes up. A higher fair value than the current market price drives investors' interest in buying the stock, leading to its price moving higher. This is why empirical research shows a strong correlation between trends in earnings estimate revisions and near-term stock price movements. Home Depot is ...