Home Depot's Sales Miss And Guidance Falls Short Of Expectations (HD)

<img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/530c7aee69bedda1097aab0b-480-359/home-depot-3.png" border="0" alt="Home Depot" width="480" />

NOTE: Earlier, we had said Home Deport earned $0.67 per share. That has been corrected to $0.73 per share.

Home Depot has just released its Q4 financial results, and at first glance the numbers are disappointing.

Comparable store sales climbed by just 4.4% during the quarter, which was weaker than the 4.6% expected by analysts.

Earnings, however, came in at $0.73 per share, just beating estimates for $0.71.

In recent months, housing market data has come up short of expectations. Poor weather, mortgage rate volatility, and construction labor issues have all been a drag.

For fiscal 2014, management expects comparable store sales growth of around 4.6%. They expect their operating profit margin to expand by 70 basis points.

On top of all that, management expects to complete approximately $5 billion worth of share repurchases that would ultimately send EPS growth up 16.5% year-over-year to $4.38 per share.

Unfortunately, this was lower than analysts' expectation for $4.43 per share.

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