Whirlpool domestic sales boom for an east beat this quarter
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Shares of Whirlpool edged higher Friday after it issued a more optimistic forecast for the year.
The maker of Maytag, KitchenAid and other appliances also reported a larger second-quarter profit than Wall Street had expected. U. S. sales, thanks in part to a hot housing market, continue to improve, in contrast to other parts of the world.
Net income nearly doubled to $320 million, or $4.15 per share. Excluding one-time gains related to tax adjustments and other one-time items, Whirlpool earned $3.50 per share, way better than the projections of $3.35 from analysts that follow the company, according to a poll by Zacks Investment Research.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Its revenue inched down to $5.2 billion from $5.21 billion a year ago. That also edged out analyst expectations.
Whirlpool, based in Benton Harbor, Michigan, now expects an annual profit of $14.25 to $14.75 per share excluding restructuring costs and other one-time items. In January the company said it would earn between $14 and $14.75 a share.
Company shares rose $1.59 to $184.31 in early trading. The muted trading might be attributable to the performance of other industrial companies like General Electric and Honeywell which, battling the strong dollar, did not fare so well.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}GE reported a decrease in orders compared with a year ago, and Honeywell's second-quarter revenue fell short of Wall Street forecasts.
Whirlpool shares have climbed 25 percent in 2016, four times the pace of the Standard & Poor's 500 index.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Elements of this story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on WHR at http://www.zacks.com/ap/WHR
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Keywords: Whirlpool, Earnings Report