Tencent Securities News on the evening of August 15, Beijing time, according to the US financial website MarketWatchThe Home Depot IncToday released its second-quarter results, saying that revenue and earnings both beat expectations, while raising its full-year outlook for the second time this year.
The Home Depot Inc shares are down 2.48% at $150.43 a share. The Home Depot Inc's share price has risen 15 per cent from the beginning of the year to the close on Monday.
The Atlanta-based company expects annual sales to grow 5.3%, and same-store sales to grow 5.5%, compared with 4.6% previously expected. In terms of earnings, The Home Depot Inc is expected to grow by 13 per cent, compared with an 11 per cent increase previously expected.
While other retailers are struggling, home decoration companies have been reporting rising sales, mainly because of the growing housing market and consumers' increasing willingness to spend on home improvement projects. Many Americans are willing to renovate their homes because new single-family homes are scarce across the country, making it more expensive to buy a new house.
Americans are expected to spend as much as $316 billion on housing remodeling this year, up from $296 billion a year ago, according to Harvard University's Joint Housing Research Center (JointCenter for Housing Studies).
In the most recent quarter, sales at The Home Depot Inc's stores, which have been open for at least a year, rose 6.3 per cent, mainly because sales in the US rose 6.6 per cent. Analysts surveyed by Consensus Metrix expect The Home Depot Inc's sales in the US to grow 5.4 per cent on average, and overall same-store sales to grow 4.9 per cent.
The Home Depot Inc's net income for the three months ended July 30 was $2.67 billion, or $2.25 per share, compared with $2.44 billion and $1.97 per share in the same period last year. Sales rose 6.2 per cent year-on-year to $28.12 billion.
Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had expected The Home Depot Inc's second-quarter earnings per share of $2.22 and sales of $27.84 billion. (Lin Xue)