Link:<http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090519/ap_on_bi_ge/us_earns_home_depot;_ylt=AvXo.Sp5_ygPX6DwGInOFwKyBhIF>

Despite lower sales, Home Depot, the country's biggest home improvement retailer, has beat Wall Street's expectations and their fiscal first-quarter profits have raised 44 percent on fewer charges. Home Depot, which is based in Atlanta, Georgia, has earned $514 million, or 30 cents per share for the quarter which has concluded on May 3rd, compared to $356 million, or 21 cents per share they have received a year ago. The earlier year's results included $543 million in charges, part of the store's closings and the shortage of future store expanding. Quarterly sales have dropped 10 percent to $16.18 billion because of customer's hesitance in their spending because of the recession, but the results still beat the analysts' prediction of $15.86 billion. Also because of this recession Home Depot is starting to see big sales fall dramatically. The sales of items like electrical material, millwork, lumber, and kitchen appliances were far under the company's average. This is also the reason why sales of $900 or more fell 15 pecent and sales of $50 or less are more common. Agreeing with Lowes', Home Depot says that popular sold items were involved in gardening such as fertilizers, seeds, and herbs, during this quarter because the weather is getting nicer. However, sales for home improving items such as caulk, water heaters, plumbing repair, and paint have stayed alive and strong. Looking at earlier year's profits from continuing operations of $2.31 billion and revenue of $71.29 billion, Home Depot is most likely to make 2009 earnings of approximately $2.15 billion based on sales close to $64.9 billion.

I chose this article because I wanted to read about how Home Depot is doing in sales and how it is doing compared to Lowes'. Lowes' is a huge competitor for Home Depot. The article didn't really talk about Lowes', but I still read the article.

I do agree with this article because Home Depot has everything and is a good store so I'm glad they are doing good sales wise.

Yes, I do think the information is presented fairly and very detailed. They discussed like what all of Home Depots' sales were within the previous years and now and also discussed the percentages and even the number of cents per share.

I have used this news source like three times already. They have really interesting and accurate articles.