By Dean Seal
Home Depot has lowered its sales and earnings guidance for fiscal 2023 as consumer spending and demand in big-ticket categories continues to soften.
The home-improvement chain said Tuesday that it now expects sales to decline between 2% and 5% this year, rather than stay flat as it had guided for in February.
Earnings are now projected to fall between 7% and 13%, compared with its prior outlook for a decline in the mid-single digits.
The company is also guiding for its operating margin to be between 14% and 14.3%, compared with previous guidance for the rate to be about 14.5%.
The downward revision came after Home Depot posted lower first-quarter sales than it had expected.
“We saw a slightly higher degree of shift out of goods and into services, and particularly out of more discretionary spending like certain home-improvement categories, than we anticipated,” Chief Financial Officer Richard McPhail said in an interview.
Shares slipped 3.8% to $277.50 in premarket trading.
Write to Dean Seal at dean.seal@wsj.com
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