Home improvement chain Lowe's Cos cuts sales forecast

[August 20, 2014] (Reuters) - Lowe's Cos Inc <LOW.N>, the world's No. 2 home improvement products retailer, reduced its sales forecast for the full year, sending its shares down 4 percent in premarket trading.

The company reported better-than-expected second-quarter revenue as it recovered most of the outdoor product sales it had missed in the first quarter when a severe North American winter hurt results of Lowe's and larger rival Home Depot Inc <HD.N>.

Lowe's said it cut its sales growth forecast to about 4.5 percent from about 5 percent to take into account its year-to-date sales. It lowered same-store sales growth forecast to about 3.5 percent from about 4 percent for the year ending January.

"We believe home improvement spending will continue to progress in tandem with strengthening job and income growth," Chief Executive Robert Niblock said in a statement.
 

Home Depot on Tuesday maintained its full-year sales growth forecast of about 4.8 percent, which Canaccord Genuity analyst Laura Champine called "somewhat conservative".

The company said it expected same-store sales to grow faster in the second half of the year as customers renovate homes with big-ticket purchases such as wood and laminate flooring in a recovering U.S. housing market.

Lowe's maintained its full-year profit forecast of about $2.63 per share.

Lowe's same-store sales rose 4.4 percent in the second quarter. Analysts polled by Consensus Metrix had expected Lowe's comparable-store sales to rise 4.1 percent.

Net income rose to $1.04 billion, or $1.04 per share, in the second quarter ended Aug. 1, from $941 million, or 88 cents per share, a year earlier.

Revenue rose to $16.59 billion from $15.71 billion.

Analysts on an average had expected earnings of $1.02 per share on revenue of $16.55 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Up to Tuesday's close of $51.52, Lowe's stock had risen 18 percent on the New York Stock Exchange in the past 12 months.

(Reporting by Sruthi Ramakrishnan in Bangalore; Editing by Don Sebastian)
 

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