No two retailers give a better indication of where the housing market is than Home Depot and Lowe’s, whose successes and shortcomings have long served as a bellwether for the industry’s economic health. So the fact that each reported mixed but encouraging second-quarter financial results this week is good news for the rest of the home business . Or at the very least, it’s not bad news.

Home Depot, the larger of the two, missed analyst forecasts for the quarter, but Lowe’s beat them, giving its stock a bigger boost for the week than its competitor’s. Lowe’s also announced a serious acquisition of a pro builder company, Foundation Building Materials, for $8.8 billion—continuing the retail giants ’ trend of going after the contractor and professional market .

Lowe’s seemed to im

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