Shares of Home Depot Inc. HD, -8.85% rose 0.9% in premarket trading Tuesday after the home improvement retail giant reported fiscal fourth-quarter profit and sales that rose above expectations and announced a 15% increase in its dividend. Net income for the quarter to Jan. 30 rose to $3.35 billion, or $3.21 a share, from $2.86 billion, or$2.65 a share, in the year-ago period. The FactSet consensus for earnings per share was $3.18. Sales grew 10.7% to $35.72 billion, topping the FactSet consensus $34.88 billion, while cost of sales increased 11.3% to $23.86 billion to lower gross margin to 33.2% from 33.6%. Same-store sales rose 8.1% to beat the FactSet consensus of a 5.0% rise, while U.S. same-store sales grew 7.6% to beat expectations of 5.4% growth. For fiscal 2022, the company expects sales and same-store sales to be “slightly positive” and EPS growth in the low single digit percentage range, while the FactSet consensus for sales implies 1.6% growth, for same-store sales is up 2.2% and for EPS implies 4.6% growth. Separately, the company raised its quarterly dividend to $1.90 a share from $1.65, with the new dividend payable March 24 to shareholders of record on March 10. The stock has tumbled 15.2% over the past three months through Friday, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -1.42% has slipped 4.3%.
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