Lowe’s beats earnings and revenue estimates…

Lowe’s released its Q2 2019 earnings report on Wednesday, revealing promising numbers for the home improvement store. The press release caused the company’s stock price to jump by more than 12% in premarket trading.

Meanwhile, Lowe’s primary competitor, Home Depot, reported mixed results in its most recent earnings report.

Lowe’s reported adjusted earnings per share of $2.15, compared to an estimated $2.01, and total revenue of $20.99 billion versus an expected $20.94 billion.

In the earnings release, CEO Marvin R. Ellison stated, “We capitalized on spring demand, strong holiday event execution and growth in Paint and our Pro business to deliver strong second quarter results. Despite lumber deflation and difficult weather, we are pleased that we delivered positive comparable sales in all 15 geographic regions of the U.S.”

Lowe’s Q2 Earnings Highlights

Here are the key points for Lowe’s Q2 earnings report:

• EPS: $2.15
• Revenue: $20.99 billion
• Same-store sales: up 2.3%

The company also reported net earnings of $1.68 billion, a 10% increase from the same period last year. U.S. comparable sales also saw an increase of 3.2%.

Quarterly Dividend

On August 16, the Lowe’s Board of Directors declared a quarterly cash dividend. The dividend is 55 cents per share and payable on November 6 to shareholders of record as of October 23.

Furthermore, the company revealed in its earnings report that it had paid a total of $382 million in dividends in the second quarter.

Full-Year Guidance

Lowe’s also updated its guidance based on its Q2 financial results.

The company now expects its full-year sales to increase by 2%, comparable sales to increase by 3%, and adjusted earnings per share to fall between $5.45 and $5.65 for the fiscal year ending on January 31, 2020.

Stock Repurchasing

In an effort to return excess cash to shareholders, Lowe’s announced that it had repurchased $1.96 billion of stock under its share repurchase program in the second quarter.

Can Lowe’s Continue to Grow?

Ellison took over as president and CEO of Lowe’s in 2018. Since then, investors have been watching closely to see if he can turn things around for the home improvement company.

Last year, the company announced several store closures in the U.S. and Canada in an effort to reduce costs. Earlier this month, Lowe’s laid off thousands of maintenance and assembly workers. And like its competitor Home Depot, Lowe’s is battling difficult weather and deflation in lumber prices.

Despite these difficulties, though, Lowe’s managed to beat Wall Street expectations with its earnings results and plans to continue to grow its business operations.

New Initiatives

Though the company recently laid off thousands of employees at its retail locations, Lowe’s has plans to add more jobs outside of its retail centers. One of Ellison’s newest initiatives is the creation of a global technology center in Charlotte, North Carolina.

In the press release, Ellison said, “We’re excited to stand up our new global technology center here in North Carolina to continue to drive our company’s growth.”

With the creation of this new technology hub, Lowe’s plans to hire as many as 2,000 tech associates to “accelerate [its] commitment to becoming a best-in-class, omni-channel retailer and strengthen [its] associate and customer experiences.”

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