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Lowe’s Gets Hammered

May 19th, 2008

Big home improvement chain Lowe’s posted weak numbers today, a 19% decline in earnings, same store sales were down 8%. The stock dropped 2%. It was already 30% off its peak from last year. A couple of interesting points were made about the housing market.

The company says it monitors sales in what they consider overpriced and not-overpriced housing markets and the sales slow down is now spreading from the already hard hit states (Florida, California, Arizona, Nevada) to the other places that didn’t have huge home price run ups such as the Midwest. In fact the few markets still doing well include oil-rich Texas and Oklahoma.

The company said the difference in sales declines between the overpriced home markets and not-overpriced was declining. Meaning everybody’s doing worse. The company has been tailoring its product mix more toward home improvement projects that require relatively little work. They have a new carpet promotion, for example. Major fix up projects like cabinetry are down.

Entry Filed under: News