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Home improvement retailer, Lowe’s Companies Inc.’s (NYSE:LOW) stock slumped 8% in pre-market trading on Monday following the release of weaker-than-expected second-quarter results.
The company has downwardly revised its full-year earnings outlook as it continued to lose the market-share to rival Home Depot Inc. (NYSE:HD) even as margins shrunk and same-store sales contracted for the quarter.
For the quarter, net earnings stood at $747 million or 64 cents down from $830 million or 64 cents reported in the year earlier quarter. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had projected earnings at 70 cents a share.
The company said that sales also fell by 2% in the quarter to $14.25 billion, well below analysts’ expectations of $14.46 billon.
Meanwhile, same-store-sales fell 0.4%, while in the U.S. it shrunk by 0.2%.
For the fiscal year ending February 1, the company now expects sales to remain flat even as it trimmed its earnings forecast to $1.64 a share from earlier projections of $1.73 to $1.83 a share.
Even though Lowe continued to offer discounts, it struggled against its bigger rival Home Depot. For 13 successive quarters, Lowe has lagged Home Depot in same-store-sales growth.
