Looking back through my notes on Lowe's (NYSE:LOW), I'm struck by how little really changes from an operational perspective. But then you look at the stock, and you see some pretty good-sized swings over the same period of time. That, my friends, is the Wall Street life in a nutshell -- it's your job to build up mountains and excavate molehills in the attempt to drive trading revenue to your desk.
Results for the company's third quarter were once again quite good. Revenue rose almost 17%, fueled in part by same-store sales growth greater than 6%. Interestingly, for the first time since I started following Lowe's, all product categories showed positive comps for the quarter. So while gas prices may be pinching consumers, those same people are still spending on their domiciles.
Performance in margins and earnings was also solid. Margins improved a bit (and when you're this big, "a bit" adds up to a lot of dollars), and net earnings grew nearly 26%. Cash flow growth was also notable -- operating cash flow rose by better than 50%, and the company produced around $1 billion in free cash flow. Given the considerable ongoing pace of expansion (a 13% increase in selling space over last year), that's a pretty solid performance in my book.
While there's no such thing as a fail-safe retail concept, I think investors would do well to put all of the economic Pollyanna-ism in perspective. People are still going to buy food and clothing and if times get tough, they'll just buy more of it at Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT). Likewise, people are going to continue to maintain their homes and yards unless times get really bad -- in which case, we'll all have bigger worries than the stock price of Lowe's or rival (and Motley Fool Inside Value recommendation) HomeDepot (NYSE:HD).
In other words, remember that not all retail is the same. We can all live without the newest Apple (NYSE:AAPL) gizmo, and we don't need Best Buy's (NYSE:BBY) greatest TV or Coach's (NYSE:COH) latest $500 piece of decoratively formed animal carcass. But, by and large, we'll all keep changing our lightbulbs and fixing things that break. That doesn't guarantee ongoing robust growth for Lowe's, but it does suggest to me that the risks aren't quite as formidable as some of the molehill-to-mountain builders want me to think.
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Best Buy is a Motley Fool Stock Advisor recommendation.
Fool contributor Stephen Simpson has no financial interest in any stocks mentioned (that means he's neither long nor short the shares).
