Home Depot share price, posts better-than-expected profit on customer growth

Home Depot Inc, the largest U.S. home-improvement retailer, reported Q3 profit that beat analysts expectations as improved U.S. job market motivated consumers to spend more.

Sales for the three months ended November 2 increased 5.4% to $20.52 billion, compared with last years result of $19.47 billion. Performance was boosted by a 3.2% growth in transactions to 355.4 million and a 2.3% increase in average sale size to $57.55.

Net income increased 13.8% to $1.54 billion with $1.15 earnings per share versus the $1.35 billion and $0.95 earnings per share of last year. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had projected $20.47 billion of revenue with a $1.13 earnings per share.

“During the quarter we saw strong performance across all geographies led by growth in transactions and continued strength in the core of the store,” said CEO Craig Menear.

Mr. Menear took over as chief executive at the beginning of the month and only a few days later the retailer was hit by a cyber attack, which resulted in around 53 million stolen customers emails and 56 million of compromised credit-card accounts.

Frank Blake, the previous CEO, had previously pointed out the company’s need to improve data security. The recent hacker attack cost Home Depot $28 million of pretax expenses for the quarter, the company said that full-year net costs related to the incident may go as high as $34 million.

Home Depot also mentioned that there could be other expenses linked to the security breach, such as reimbursements for credit-card fraud, credit-card reissuance, investigations and litigation. As of now the company said it couldnt estimate the value of those costs. The home-improvement retailer is faced with 44 civil lawsuits connected to the data breach in the U.S. and Canada.

The company reaffirmed its 2014 fiscal guidance of around 4.8% sales growth and 21% increase in earnings per share to $4.54. The projection include the planned $1.26 billion repurchase of shares in the fourth quarter, bringing the total amount of bought back shares to $7 billion year-to-date. On average analysts estimated earnings per share to hit $4.53.

According to the National Association of Realtors, the average price for a single-family home in the U.S. rose 4.9% during the third quarter. The movement follows Q2s increase of 4.4% and Q1s gain of 8.3%.

Home Depot Inc lost 0.21% on Monday and closed at $98.03 in New York. On Tuesday the stock dropped 1.10% to trade at $96.95 at 14:31 GMT, marking a one-year increase of 22.49%. The company is valued at $131.94 billion. According to CNN Money, the 26 analysts offering 12-month price forecasts for Home Depot Inc have a median target of $99.50, with a high estimate of $115.00 and a low estimate of $82.00. The median estimate represents a 1.50% increase from the last close price of $98.03.