Lowe's Reports Wednesday. The Guide It Affirmed in May Implies the Last Three Quarters Grow Slower Than the First Did.

by Leah Avraham · August 18, 2026

Previews Correspondent, Earnings Dispatch

Lowe's Companies reports second-quarter fiscal 2026 results on Wednesday, August 19. The most useful document to have open when it lands is not a preview note but the company's own first-quarter release from May 20, because that is where Lowe's last put a full-year number on the record and because the arithmetic of what remains is fixed by it.

That release says Lowe's is affirming its fiscal 2026 outlook, and every figure in it matches the one the company first issued with fourth-quarter results on February 25, the sole change being that February's capital expenditures of "approximately $2.5 billion" became "up to $2.5 billion" in May. Total sales of $92.0 billion to $94.0 billion, an increase of approximately 7% to 9%. Comparable sales flat to up 2%. Operating margin of 11.2% to 11.4%, adjusted operating margin of 11.6% to 11.8%. An effective tax rate of roughly 24.5%. GAAP diluted earnings per share of $11.75 to $12.25 and adjusted diluted EPS of $12.25 to $12.75. Capital expenditures of up to $2.5 billion.

The first quarter is already banked. Lowe's reported net sales of $23,078 million for the quarter ended May 1, 2026, against $20,930 million in the year-ago period, growth of 10.3%. Comparable sales rose 0.6%. GAAP net earnings were $1,628 million and GAAP diluted EPS $2.90, on 560 million diluted shares, against $1,641 million and $2.92 a year earlier. Adjusted diluted EPS was $3.03. Net earnings fell slightly year over year while sales rose more than 10%.

Subtract that quarter from the affirmed guide and the balance of the year is defined. On sales, fiscal 2025 total sales were $86,286 million and first-quarter fiscal 2025 sales were $20,930 million, so the final three quarters of last year produced $65,356 million. The fiscal 2026 range less the $23,078 million already reported leaves $68,922 million to $70,922 million. That is growth of 5.5% at the bottom of the guide and 8.5% at the top, against the 10.3% the first quarter actually delivered. Even the high end of the affirmed range requires the last three quarters to grow more slowly than the first one did.

On GAAP earnings the picture is tighter still. Fiscal 2025 GAAP diluted EPS was $11.85; the first quarter of fiscal 2025 contributed $2.92, leaving $8.93 for the final three quarters. That number checks against the individual prints: $4.27 in the second quarter, $2.88 in the third and $1.78 in the fourth sum to exactly $8.93. The fiscal 2026 GAAP range less the $2.90 already earned leaves $8.85 to $9.35, a span running from 0.9% below last year's final three quarters to 4.7% above.

On the adjusted basis the low end goes negative. Lowe's reported adjusted diluted EPS of $4.33 in the second quarter of fiscal 2025, $3.06 in the third and $1.98 in the fourth, summing to $9.37. The fiscal 2026 adjusted range less the $3.03 already reported leaves $9.22 to $9.72. The bottom of the guide Lowe's affirmed in May implies the final three quarters of this year earn 1.6% less on an adjusted basis than the same three quarters a year ago; the top implies 3.7% more.

Step back to the full year and the same tension is visible without any subtraction at all. Fiscal 2025 GAAP diluted EPS was $11.85. The fiscal 2026 GAAP guide of $11.75 to $12.25 brackets it, running from a 0.8% decline to a 3.4% gain, while total sales are guided up 7% to 9%. The wedge between those two rates is acquisitions: Lowe's is buying revenue faster than it is converting it into reported per-share earnings, and the accounting for those deals is what separates the GAAP guide from the adjusted one.

The company has been unusually explicit about the size of that separation. Its first-quarter non-GAAP reconciliation states that the adjusted diluted EPS guidance for fiscal 2026 and for the second quarter of fiscal 2026 excludes an expected after-tax impact of approximately $0.50 and $0.13 respectively from intangible asset amortization, and that the adjusted operating margin guidance excludes an expected impact of roughly 40 basis points from the same source. In other words, Lowe's has pre-announced its own expected GAAP-to-adjusted spread for the quarter that reports Wednesday: about thirteen cents.

One note on that thirteen cents. The first quarter's actual adjustment was also $0.13, carried in the reconciliation under the heading acquisition of businesses and built from $0.17 of pre-tax impact and a $(0.04) tax benefit. The reconciliation describes the underlying $96 million of pre-tax expenses as consisting of intangible asset amortization related to the acquisitions of Artisan Design Group and Foundation Building Materials, which is the same item the forward-looking footnote names. The heading, though, is broader than the charge currently sitting under it: in the third quarter of fiscal 2025 that same acquisition of businesses line carried transaction costs alongside amortization. The second quarter's thirteen cents is guided as amortization; the line it lands on can hold more than that.

That thirteen cents is the number to hold against whatever consensus figure gets quoted Wednesday. TipRanks, previewing the print, put the Street at $26.14 billion of revenue and $4.22 of EPS, describing the latter as down about 3% from $4.33 a year ago, and did not state whether $4.22 is a GAAP or an adjusted figure. The $4.33 it compares against is Lowe's adjusted second-quarter fiscal 2025 result; the GAAP figure for that quarter was $4.27, after a $0.06 adjustment for $43 million of pre-tax expenses tied to the Artisan Design Group acquisition. Using the company's own guided spread, an adjusted $4.22 corresponds to GAAP near $4.09, and a GAAP $4.22 corresponds to adjusted near $4.35 — a beat and a miss from the same estimate.

The revenue estimate carries its own implication. Lowe's reported $23,959 million for the quarter ended August 1, 2025, so a $26.14 billion consensus is 9.1% growth, which TipRanks rounds to up 9%. StockStory's August 17 preview put expected growth at 8.9%, implying a slightly lower revenue consensus than the one TipRanks quotes. Suppose Lowe's hits it and the full year lands at the midpoint of its guide, $93.0 billion. Then the third and fourth quarters together must produce $43,782 million against the $20,813 million and $20,584 million — $41,397 million combined — they produced last year. That is 5.8% growth in the back half, against 10.3% in the first quarter and the roughly 9% the Street is modeling for the second.

Comparable sales are the cleaner signal because acquisitions do not flatter them. The affirmed guide is flat to up 2% for the year and the first quarter came in at 0.6%, which sits in the lower half of that band. Last year's quarterly comps for the periods still ahead were 1.1% in the second quarter, 0.4% in the third and 1.3% in the fourth. Getting to the top of the full-year range requires a clear step up from the 0.6% start.

Margin is where the second quarter carries the most weight, because it is seasonally the strongest. Lowe's operating margin was 14.48% in the second quarter of fiscal 2025 and 11.92% in the third; the first quarter of fiscal 2026 came in at 11.07%. The full-year guide of 11.2% to 11.4% GAAP and 11.6% to 11.8% adjusted needs the spring and summer quarters to carry the rest.

Three things are worth checking in Wednesday's release itself rather than in the coverage of it. Whether the outlook language is still an affirmation or has moved. Whether the second-quarter GAAP-to-adjusted spread lands near the $0.13 the company told investors to expect, and whether the acquisition of businesses line holds only the amortization Lowe's guided to or picks up transaction costs as well. And whether the total-sales line, stripped of the acquisition contribution that comparable sales exclude, is tracking toward the 5.5% to 8.5% the remaining guide requires.