Lowe's Companies, Inc. (NYSE:LOW) Shares Under Selling Pressure As Profit Declines

Home improvement retailer Lowe's Companies, Inc.(NYSE:LOW) reported a 10 percent fall in its net profit for the second quarter sending its shares down more than 6 percent in pre-market trades.

The company also clashed its earnings and revenue guidance for 2012.

Lowe's shares fell $1.83 to $26.04 in mid day trading on Monday. Over the past 52 weeks, the stock has traded between $18.28 and $32.29.

The company's second quarter earnings were hit by a change in shift timings and expenses related to job cuts.

Lowe's earned $747 million, or 64 cents per share, for the period ended Aug. 3 compared to $830 million, or 64 cents per share, a year ago.

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A change in shift timings due to fiscal 2012 having one less week than last year, led to lowered earnings by about 3 cents a share.

Excluding the charge related to previously announced job cuts and the impact of the timing shift, adjusted earnings would have been 68 cents per share.

Revenue fell 2 percent to $14.25 billion from $14.54 billion. Lowe's said that the timing shift accounted for 1.8 percentage points of the decline.

Analysts expected earnings of 70 cents per share on revenue of $14.44 billion.

"Our results fell short of our overall expectations," said Robert A. Niblock, Lowe's chairman, president and CEO in a statement.

"However, I have confidence in our strategy and in our employees, and while we recognize the significant magnitude of change that we've asked the organization to absorb as we transform our business, we fully understand that we must improve our level of execution."

For fiscal 2012, Lowe's expects earnings of about $1.64 per share and revenue to be about flat at 2011's $50.21 billion.

It previously forecast earnings of $1.73 to $1.83 per share, with revenue rising 1 percent to 2 percent.

Wall Street foresees full-year earnings of $1.80 per share on revenue of $50.58 billion.