Lowe`s Companies Inc (NYSE:LOW) stock rose 0.53% (As on August 18, 11:53:38 AM UTC-4, Source: Google Finance) after the company delivered mixed second-quarter fiscal 2022 results. LOW ended the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of $1,482 million, long-term debt (excluding current maturities) of $28,763 million and a shareholders’ deficit of $8,442 million. Lowe’s generated cash flow from operations of $6,012 million for the six months ended Jul 29, 2022. Capital expenditures amounted to $687 million.

Moreover, the comparable sales dipped 0.3% in the quarter under review. Comparable sales for the U.S. home-improvement business rose 0.2% in the reported quarter. Pro-customer sales jumped 13%, recording the ninth consecutive quarter of a double-digit increase. Gross profit dipped 1.9% year over year to $9,133 million, while gross margin contracted 54 basis points (bps) to 33.24%. Operating income amounted to $4,229 million, up 0.5% year over year. Operating margin expanded 12 bps to 15.39% on gains from the Total Home strategy and the execution of the Perpetual Productivity Improvement initiative. In the second quarter, Lowe’s bought back 21.6 million shares for $4 billion and paid out dividends of $524 million. As of Jul 29, 2022, Lowe’s operated 1,969 home-improvement and hardware stores across the United States and Canada. LOW serviced nearly 212 dealer-owned stores.

LOW in the second quarter of FY 22 has reported the adjusted earnings per share of $4.67, beating the analysts’ estimates for the adjusted earnings per share of $4.63, according to the Zacks Consensus Estimate. The company had reported 0.3 percent decline in the adjusted revenue to $27.5 billion in the second quarter of FY 22, missing the analysts’ estimates for revenue of $28.2 billion.

For fiscal 2022, LOW expects revenues to be in the range of $97-99 billion, comparable sales expected to range from a decline of -1% to an increase of 1%, gross margin rate to be up slightly compared to prior year, Depreciation and amortization to be of approximately $1.75 billion, Operating income as a percentage of sales (operating margin) to be in the range of 12.8% to 13.0%, Interest expense to be of $1.1 to $1.2 billion (previously $1.0 to $1.1 billion), diluted earnings per share to be in the range of $13.10 to $13.60, total share repurchases to be of approximately $12 billion, ROIC to be of over 36% and Capital expenditures to be of approximately $2 billion.