Patrick T. Fallon | Bloomberg | Getty Images
An employee organizes buckets for sale inside a Lowe's Cos. store in Burbank, California.
Lowe's on Wednesday delivered a mixed earnings report for the fourth quarter, sending its shares slightly lower in premarket trading.
The home improvement retailer called out a weak housing market in Canada as impacting results. CEO Marvin Ellison noted, however, that "U.S. macroeconomic fundamentals remain sound for 2019."
Lowe's reported a net loss for the quarter ended Feb. 1 of $824 million, or a loss of $1.03 per share, compared with net income of $554 million, or 67 cents a share, a year ago. Excluding one-time items, Lowe's earned 80 cents per share, a penny a share ahead of analysts' forecast based on Refinitiv data.
Lowe's said the latest results included $1.6 billion in pretax charges: $952 million was tied to a goodwill impairment charge Lowe's took for its business in Canada.
"We anticipate continued weakness in the Canadian housing market in the near-term, but remain confident in our market position in Canada and the long-term potential of that business," Ellison said.
Revenue during the fourth quarter rose to $15.65 billion from $15.49 billion a year ago. That was short of analysts' expectations for $15.74 billion.
Lowe's said sales at its stores open for at least 12 months climbed 1.7 percent during the quarter, missing expectations for growth of 2.1 percent. Same-store sales for its U.S. home improvement business were up 2.4 percent, Lowe's said.
Lowe's shares were off less than 1 percent in premarket trading on the news. As of Tuesday's market close, the stock is up about 14 percent from a year ago, bringing the retailer's market cap to roughly $84.3 billion.
The results from Lowe's come just one day after rival Home Depot's mixed report. Bad winter weather and a cooling real estate market in the U.S. hurt the largest home improvement retailer in the country during the fourth quarter. Home Depot's outlook for 2019 also wasn't as strong as some analysts were expecting, as the state of the housing market could still pose challenges in the year ahead.
Lowe's is calling for earnings per share of between $6 and $6.10 in fiscal 2019. Analysts had been expecting $6.04 per share. Lowe's says it expects annual revenue to be up about 2 percent, and same-store sales to climb roughly 3 percent this year.
Now with Ellison at the helm, Lowe's has been overhauling its business in a bid to stay competitive with Home Depot. It's ending its Mexico retail operations and has been shutting stores in North America to focus on its most profitable locations.
On Wednesday, Ellison said the company was already seeing strong results from some of its "early spring" business.
