Lowe's profit, revenue miss expectations

MOORESVILLE, N.C. -- No. 2 home-improvement retailer Lowe's said Monday poor weather and cautious consumer spending caused sales to fall below expectations and earnings to fall 19% in the second quarter.

The company also plans to scale back store openings in its next fiscal year in response to the poor economy and consumer pullback.

"Wavering consumer confidence, unseasonable weather in core markets, and restrained customer spending compared to last year's fiscal stimulus-aided results led to lower than expected sales in the second quarter," said Robert Niblock, Lowe's chairman and CEO.

The No. 2 home-improvement retailer says profit fell to $759 million, or 51 cents a share, from $938 million, or 64 cents a share last year.

Revenue fell 5% to $13.84 billion.

Sales in stores open at least one year, a key retail metric known as same-store sales, fell 9.5% during the quarter.

The company said it is scaling back on expansion plans in 2010. The company now expects to open 35 to 45 stores during the year. It said it is also taking a $48 million charge for canceling plans for several new stores.

The company did not immediately respond to a query about where the stores were to be located.

For the third quarter, the company predicts earnings of 21 cents to 25 cents a share. It expects sales to fall 2% to 5%, implying sales of $11.49 billion to $11.14 billion.

Analysts expect a third-quarter profit of 27 cents a share on revenue of $11.62 billion.

It expects yearly sales to fall about 3%, implying revenue of $46.75 billion. Previously the company said it expected sales to be somewhere in the range of down 2% to up 1%.

The company said it expects yearly earnings of $1.13 to $1.21 a share, from previous guidance of $1.13 to $1.15 a share. Analysts predict a profit of $1.23 a share on revenue of $47.83 billion.