Lowe’s Companies (LOW) released its Q4 2023 results and immediately continued to climb, adding nearly 3% during the first half-hour after the opening bell on February 27. One of the U.S. major retail chains that focuses on items for do-it-yourself (DIY) activity of decorating, building, and making repairs at home showed better-than-feared decline in both profit and sales lines of the report.

The impact of sticky inflation and still high borrowing costs on consumers' behaviour is here, yet some retailers handle it getting less damage in income than others. Many portfolio investors are still adding new stakes in this kind of stocks, so that Lowe's market value already rose by more than 27%, or by $50 per share, only for the last four months. Lowe's larger rival Home Depot (HD), which is the number one home improvement goods retailer in North America, demonstrates similarly positive market trending.

Lowe's EPS (equity per share) of $1.77 in Q4 2023 came out almost at the same level as it was at a similar period two years ago. However, it represents a lower level of profit, compared to $2.28 in Q4 2022 and especially against a very positive background of $3.83 on average during the first three quarters of 2023. Comparable sales fell by 6.2% QoQ, yet expert consensus on Wall Street expected some larger decline. Poll of forecasters called for $18.47 billion in total sales, and the actual number was at $18.60 billion.

"This quarter we delivered strong operating profit and improved customer satisfaction, despite the continued pullback in DIY spending," Lowe's CEO Marvin Ellison stated, warning that a full-year outlook for 2024 would be tempered by "near-term macroeconomic uncertainty". Nevertheless, the company's forward guidance of posting only a 2% to 3% decline in comparable sales compared to 2023, with a total revenue of $84 billion to $85 billion, and diluted EPS of about $12.00 to $12.30 for the year, clearly sought to cheer shareholders.

The crowd probably supposed the guidance could be beatable, so that a 10% climb to historical highs of November 21 above $263 with a chance of even challenging those peaking prices looks as a baseline scenario when one watches the new record peaks on the S&P 500 broad market barometer.