Earnings growth slows at Home Depot despite sales increase

Home Depot's sales grew 7.3 percent for the three months ending on May 3 while earnings were down 8.4 percent during the same period. "We took early and decisive action to intentionally limit customer traffic in our stores which we believe had a significant impact to sales in many markets," said CEO Craig Menear. "Even with these actions, the robust and flexible interconnected infrastructure that we have invested in for over a decade allowed us to quickly adapt to changing customer preferences and achieve strong sales performance in the quarter."