Home Depot Swings to Profit, Ups Dividend
Updated from 6:37 a.m. EST
NEW YORK (
) --
Home Depot
(HD) - Get Report
, the world's No. 1 home-improvement retailer, swung to a profit in the fourth quarter and said it was raising its dividend 5%.
Home Depot's dividend increase to 23.625 cents was its first since 2006.
Home Depot said fourth-quarter earnings were $342 million, or 20 cents a share. Adjusted earnings were 24 cents a share. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expected Home Depot to earn 17 cents a share.
Sales fell 0.3% to $14.57 billion but topped Wall Street's view of $14.07 billion. Comparable-store sales in the quarter rose 1.2%. U.S. comparable sales declined 1.1%.
Home Depot said it expects earnings from continuing operations in 2010 to increase about 15.5% to $1.79 a share. It expects sales growth of about 2.5% and comparable-store sales growth of about 2.5%.
Smaller rival
Lowe's
(LOW) - Get Report
on Monday said its
fourth-quarter earnings topped analyst estimates
. But its forecast for first-quarter net income fell short of analyst views.
-- Reported by Joseph Woelfel in New York.
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