Home Depot's Earnings Miss And Guidance Falls Short Of Expectations

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Home Depot has just released its Q4 financial results, and at first glance the numbers are disappointing.

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Comparable store sales climbed by just 4.4% during the quarter, which was weaker than the 4.6% expected by analysts.

Earnings came in at $0.67 per share, falling short of estimates for $0.71.

In recent months, housing market data has come up short of expectations. Poor weather, mortgage rate volatility, and construction labor issues have all been a drag.

For fiscal 2014, management expects comparable store sales growth of around 4.6%. They expect their operating profit margin to expand by 70 basis points.

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On top of all that, management expects to complete approximately $5 billion worth of share repurchases that would ultimately send EPS growth up 16.5% year-over-year to $4.38 per share.

Unfortunately, this was lower than analysts' expectation for $4.43 per share.