Sabrina Escobar and George Glover
Lowe's stock was falling Tuesday as the company's quarterly earnings report failed to reassure investors that the home-improvement market is headed back to normal after years of weak demand.
For the third quarter ended Nov. 1, profit fell to $2.89 a share from $3.06 a year earlier, and sales fell 1.4% to $20.2 billion. Analysts had expected earnings of $2.82 a share on revenue of $19.9 billion, according to FactSet.
Lowe's raised its outlook for 2024 earnings per share to a range of $11.80 to $11.90, up from $11.70 to $11.90. It also raised the total sales outlook for the year to a range from $83 billion to $83.5 billion, up from $82.7 billion to $83.2 billion. For the full year, analysts had penciled in adjusted earnings of $11.82 on revenue of $83 billion.
Recovery efforts in the aftermath of hurricanes Helene and Milton helped drive up the company's quarterly sales numbers, although Chairman, President, and CEO Marvin R. Ellison said in Tuesday's earnings release that the results were "modestly better-than-expected, even excluding storm-related activity."
Lowe's shares fell 1.6% to $267.49 in premarket trading. Futures for the benchmark S&P 500 index were down 0.3%.
"We find it too early to call an inflection point in underlying home-improvement demand yet," wrote Zhihan Ma, an analyst at Bernstein. "In fact, our proprietary home-improvement macro forecast suggests that home-improvement demand will likely remain subdued over the next 12 months." Ma rates Lowe's stock at Outperform with a $306 price target.
Home Depot's management team last week reaffirmed its view that the home-improvement market has yet to go back to normal definitively after several years of weak demand, even though the company also raised guidance. Higher-price discretionary projects, for instance, have yet to pick up, Home Depot CEO Ted Decker said last week, as consumers wait for interest rates to keep trending lower. Lowe's also called out "continued softness in DIY bigger-ticket discretionary demand."
Expect Lowe's management team to echo Home Depot's tone at its call with investors scheduled for 9 a.m. Eastern time. Both companies are seeking to temper the market's expectations, which have already drifted quite high in hopes that the Federal Reserve's rate cuts will eventually reignite demand.
Consumers tend to embark on remodeling projects just before selling a house or right after buying one, but many potential buyers are still put off by persistently high interest rates and housing prices. Lower rates should reverse those trends, which is why Lowe's stock has gained 22% this year. Indeed, sales at building- and garden-supplies dealers rose by 0.5% in October from September, according to the latest retail sales report, and are up 2.8% year over year.
But in the words of Home Depot's Decker: "Markets return to equilibrium, and remodeling will as well -- we just don't think we're quite there yet."
Write to Sabrina Escobar at sabrina.escobar@barrons.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 19, 2024 08:16 ET (13:16 GMT)
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