NOTE: Earlier, we had said Home Deport earned $0.67 per share. That has been corrected to $0.73 per share.
Home Depot has just released its Q4 financial results, and at first glance the numbers are disappointing.
Comparable store sales climbed by just 4.4% during the quarter, which was weaker than the 4.6% expected by analysts.
Earnings, however, came in at $0.73 per share, just beating estimates for $0.71.
In recent months, housing market data has come up short of expectations. Poor weather, mortgage rate volatility, and construction labor issues have all been a drag.
For fiscal 2014, management expects comparable store sales growth of around 4.6%. They expect their operating profit margin to expand by 70 basis points.
On top of all that, management expects to complete approximately $5 billion worth of share repurchases that would ultimately send EPS growth up 16.5% year-over-year to $4.38 per share.
Unfortunately, this was lower than analysts' expectation for $4.43 per share.