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ATLANTA (AP) -- The Home Depot posted strong profits in its final quarter of 2022 but said it expects profits to slip this year, sending shares of the home improvement retailer skidding at the opening bell Tuesday.
Home Depot has excelled over the past several year with so many people hunkered down at home, or searching for a new home in a pandemic. That boom has eased for a number of reasons and Americans are spending more on services outside the home now, diminishing some of the supercharged ring-ups of recent years at Home Depot.
The Atlanta company had a fourth-quarter profit of $3.36 billion, or $3.30 per share, which is 3 cents better than Wall Street had expected, according to a survey of analysts by Zacks Investment Research.
Quarterly revenue of $35.83 billion was just shy of forecasts, but the focus was on the retailer's expectations for 2023.
Home Depot expects a decline in annual per-share earnings in the mid-single-digit percentage, which caught industry analysts off guard. Wall Street was also projecting a slight uptick in sales, but Home Depot said that would likely be flat.
The company also said Tuesday that it would spend $1 billion on wage increases for its U.S. and Canadian hourly workers, starting this month.
Starting pay will be at least $15 per hour in all markets.
Shares fell almost 4% when markets opened.
Home Depot posted huge numbers during the pandemic as millions stuck at home either reworked the space where they lived, or found more spacious accommodations. All of that put the world's largest home improvement retailer in high demand, both for home owners, and on Wall Street.