Lowe's Companies (ticker: LOW ) maintained its 2019 momentum on Wednesday after the home improvement retailer reported impressive second-quarter earnings numbers. Lowe's shares on the New York Stock Exchange gained nearly 10% following the report and analysts say there's still more upside ahead for LOW stock .

Lowe's reported second-quarter adjusted earnings per share of $2.15 on revenue of $20.99 billion. Both numbers beat consensus analyst estimates of $2.01 in EPS and $20.94 billion in revenue. Revenue was up 1% from a year ago.

Same-store sales growth of 2.3% also surpassed Wall Street forecasts of 1.9% growth.

Read:

Lowe's 2.3% growth was still shy of the 3% same-store sales growth that rival Home Depot ( HD ) reported earlier this week. However, Lowe's surpassed Home Depot in the U.S. market, growing same-store sales by 3.2% compared to 3.1% for Home Depot. Home Depot has consistently outperformed Lowe's in recent years, but LOW has closed the gap since CEO Marvin Ellison joined the company last year. Ellison says Lowe's was able to overcome a difficult trade climate in the second quarter.

"We capitalized on spring demand, strong holiday event execution and growth in paint and our pro business to deliver strong second-quarter results," Ellison says in a statement. "Despite lumber deflation and difficult weather, we are pleased that we delivered positive comparable sales in all 15 geographic regions of the U.S."

Looking ahead, Lowe's reiterated its previous full-year 2019 guidance for full-year 2019 EPS of between $5.45 and $5.65, revenue growth of 2% and same-store sales growth of 3%.

Investors cheered LOW maintaining its guidance after Home Depot cut its sales guidance this week, blaming U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports for its slower-than-expected growth.

Read:

Edward Jones analyst Brian Yarbrough says Lowe's impressive quarter and a healthy U.S. housing market are a winning recipe for investors.

"We believe the quarter was strong with sales and earnings above expectations," Yarbrough says. "We believe the company is uniquely positioned to benefit from continued spending on housing and from an improvement in the store operations, and it has a business model that is differentiated from Internet retailers."

Edward Jones has a "buy" rating for LOW stock .

Compare Offers

Compare Offers