MOORESVILLE, N.C. (AP) — Lowe's profit more than doubled in the third quarter as Americans along the Gulf Coast loaded up trunks and trucks with materiel to repair the damage delivered by a pair of gigantic hurricanes.
The company said sales related to hurricanes Irma and Harvey reached $200 million in the quarter, pushing revenue to $16.77 billion. That's better than the $16.57 billion Wall Street was looking for and it topped last year's revenue of $15.74 billion.
Net income was $872 million, or $1.05 per share, also besting industry analyst projections by 3 cents per share.
Still, investors were not wowed in premarket trading Tuesday because, unlike rival Home Depot Inc., the storms did no lead higher profit or sales projections.
The Mooresville, North Carolina, home improvement retailer said it expects to earn $4.20 to $4.30 per share this year, the same projections it released in August. That's below the per-share projections of $4.50 on Wall Street.
Shares edged lower before the opening bell.
Last week, Home Depot also topped most expectations, but was a lot more optimistic about the year, saying it believes earnings will rise about 14 percent, which is better than industry analysts had expected.
Lowe's did lower general and administrative costs to $3.81 billion, from $4.08 billion.
Sales at stores open at least a year, a key indicator of a retailer's health, increased 5.7 percent at Lowe's, and 5.1 percent in the U.S.
Lowe's also stuck to expectations that sales would rise about 5 percent and said same-store sales should be up about 3.5 percent.
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Elements of this story were generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on LOW at https://www.zacks.com/ap/LOW