Home Depot Quarterly Results Outstrip Expectations, Raises 2016 View

Home Depot on Tuesday raised its yearly outlook and posted better-than-anticipated same-store sales figures in a quarter that was "marked by week-to-week demand spikes caused by weather variability." The home improvement retailer said first-quarter net profit were $1.8 billion, or $1.44 share, compared with $1.58 billion, or $1.21 a share, a year ago. Analysts polled by FactSet expected $1.35 a share. Sales rose to $22.76 billion from $20.89 billion in the same period last year. Wall Street had pegged sales at $22.38 billion. Home Depot said quarterly U.S. same-store rose 7.4%, above expectations of a 5.2% increase. The company now expects fiscal 2016 per-share earnings to rise 14.8% to $6.27, ahead of the FactSet consensus of $6.22 a share. It also lifted its fiscal 2016 sales view, foreseeing a same-store sales rise of 4.9%.