Home Depot Beats Street at $1.67 EPS

ATLANTA—The home improvement sector, and specifically The Home Depot, continues to stand as one of the strongest in retail. The nation's largest home-improvement chain reported 5.5% gains year over year in same-store sales for the first quarter of fiscal 2017, compared to a FactSet estimate of 4%, while diluted earnings at $1.67 per share were up 16% Y-O-Y and beat Thomson Reuters consensus estimates by five cents per share.

Q1's sales tallied $23.9 billion across Home Depot's US, Canadian and Mexican stores, a 4.9% increase from the year-ago period. Sales per square foot for the three months ended April 30 were $394.17, for a comparable Y-O-Y increase of 4.6%.

Craig Menear, Home Depot's chairman, CEO and president, notes that the quarterly results reflect “broad-based growth across our interconnected platform and all geographies.” The company said Tuesday it had increased its full-year earnings guidance to $7.15 per diluted share, up from $7.13 per share and representing an 11% gain from fiscal 2016, while maintaining its projections of 4.6% Y-O-Y gains for both sales generally and same-store sales.

Home improvement's strength was reflected in TJX Cos.' mixed report for its own Q1 results. Although same-store sales for the retailer's T.J. Maxx and Marshall's brands were flat on a Y-O-Y basis for the three months that ended April 29, its HomeGoods brand posted 3% gains, beating a FactSet consensus of 2.4%. TJX added 17 HomeGoods locations during the quarter, bringing the brand's domestic footprint to 14.5 million square feet.

“There are no near-term signs that the housing market will weaken,” Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail, wrote in a client note quoted by Reuters on Tuesday. “As such, we believe this will continue to provide a benefit across the remainder of this fiscal year.”

ATLANTA—The home improvement sector, and specifically The Home Depot, continues to stand as one of the strongest in retail. The nation's largest home-improvement chain reported 5.5% gains year over year in same-store sales for the first quarter of fiscal 2017, compared to a FactSet estimate of 4%, while diluted earnings at $1.67 per share were up 16% Y-O-Y and beat Thomson Reuters consensus estimates by five cents per share.

Q1's sales tallied $23.9 billion across Home Depot's US, Canadian and Mexican stores, a 4.9% increase from the year-ago period. Sales per square foot for the three months ended April 30 were $394.17, for a comparable Y-O-Y increase of 4.6%.

Craig Menear, Home Depot's chairman, CEO and president, notes that the quarterly results reflect “broad-based growth across our interconnected platform and all geographies.” The company said Tuesday it had increased its full-year earnings guidance to $7.15 per diluted share, up from $7.13 per share and representing an 11% gain from fiscal 2016, while maintaining its projections of 4.6% Y-O-Y gains for both sales generally and same-store sales.

Home improvement's strength was reflected in TJX Cos.' mixed report for its own Q1 results. Although same-store sales for the retailer's T.J. Maxx and Marshall's brands were flat on a Y-O-Y basis for the three months that ended April 29, its HomeGoods brand posted 3% gains, beating a FactSet consensus of 2.4%. TJX added 17 HomeGoods locations during the quarter, bringing the brand's domestic footprint to 14.5 million square feet.

“There are no near-term signs that the housing market will weaken,” Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail, wrote in a client note quoted by Reuters on Tuesday. “As such, we believe this will continue to provide a benefit across the remainder of this fiscal year.”