Filed under: Earnings reports, Home Depot (HD), Lowe’s Cos (LOW)

America’s largest home improvement superstores, Lowe’s Companies Inc. (NYSE: LOW) and Home Depot Inc. (NYSE: HD) are scheduled to report earnings this coming week. Here’s a quick peek at them ahead of results.

Lowe’s has missed earnings expectations only once in the past five quarters. When the company reported third-quarter fiscal 2008 results back in November, earnings came to 43 cents per share, beating the consensus forecast of analysts polled by Thomson Financial by two cents. For the current quarter, analysts expect only 25 cents per share, compared to 40 cents in the year-ago quarter.

The company’s earnings per share growth forecast for the next three to five years is 19.1%, less than the industry average of 31.6%. The analysts’ consensus recommendation is to buy Lowe’s, though 10 of 21 analysts rate it a hold. Shares are up from the 52-week low of $19.94 in January, and closed Friday at $23.59.

For news on Lowe’s and its rivals that could influence the earnings results, see BloggingStocks’ Lowe’s coverage.

Continue reading Earnings previews: Lowe’s and Home Depot

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This entry was posted on Monday, February 25th, 2008 at 4:17 am and is filed under Stocks Money News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.