Lowe's Quarterly Earnings, Sales Miss Expectations, Shares Slide Premarket

Lowe's Cos. on Wednesday posted quarterly sales and adjusted earnings that fell short of Wall Street's targets. First-quarter adjusted earnings at the home-improvement retailer were $1.03 a share, compared with FactSet estimate of $1.06 a share. Lowe's said adjusted earnings were 87 cents a year ago. Net earnings were $602 million, or 70 cents a share, compared with $884 million, or 98 cents a share, a year ago. First-quarter sales came in at $16.86 billion, up from $15.23 billion in the year-earlier period, but below the FactSet consensus estimate of $16.95 billion. Same-store sales during the quarter rose 1.9%, said Lowe's. The company's shares dropped more than 7% in premarket trade after the results were released.