Home Depot was on of the worst performing stock in the Dow today and year to date. The stock has last 7 % yesterday and is down 14% since beginning of the year. The biggest home improvement retailer keeps posting weaker-than-expected quarterly sales and warned about full-year growth. As it looks like, people are down-spending!
Home Depot revenues increased by 0.3% to $35.8 billion (inflation adjusted that would result to a decline in the region of 8%. Also, comparable store sales declined 0.3%. Both are below estimates for now. More importantly, customer transactions fell 6%, and sales per retail square foot were down 0.1%. Earnings per share (EPS) of $3.30 beat forecasts.
Missed guidance!
The company anticipates 2023 sales and comparable store sales will be approximately the same as in 2022. Analysts were expecting a slight gain. It said EPS is set to drop by a mid-single-digit percentage, while estimates were for profit to be flat.
Finally, company is trying to keep happy its investors and employees: the company is raising its quarterly dividend by $0.19 to $2.09, and will spend $1 billion on salary increases for its hourly employees this year.