Home Depot cuts outlook as 3Q revenue misses forecast

Home Depot had a rocky third quarter, with revenue and a key sales figure missing analysts’ expectations.

The home improvement company also cut its forecasts for full-year revenue and comparable sales.

Shares dropped 5.8% before the market open on Tuesday.

For the three months ended Nov. 3, Home Depot Inc. earned $2.77 billion, or 2.53 per share. A year earlier, the Atlanta-based company earned $2.87 billion, or $2.51 per share.

The profit figure met the expectations of analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research.

Revenue, however, totaled $27.22 billion, below the $27.47 billion that Wall Street was looking for.

Comparable sales rose 3.6%, whereas analysts polled by FactSet had predicted a 4.7% increase.

Home Depot said it now anticipates fiscal 2019 sales will grow by approximately 1.8% and comparable sales will climb about 3.5%. Its previous guidance was for sales growth of 2.3% and comparable sales growth of 4%.

—————

Portions of this story were generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on HD at https://www.zacks.com/ap/HD