Home Depot got hit by bad weather in a windfall for investors

Home Depot‘s stock was shaken up for missing Wall Street estimates in the last quarter and it created a good opportunity for investors to buy, CNBC’s Jim Cramer said Tuesday.

While the home improvement company came up short in earnings and revenue in its fourth quarter report before the bell and gave a weaker-than-expected forecast for the year, the “Mad Money” host highlighted its new $15 billion stock buyback and 32 percent dividend increase.

“To me, if we are talking about just any old retailer, I would say it’s time to sell. A miss is a miss, but Home Depot is different,” said Cramer, who pointed out that it could be considered among the best retailers alongside Costco.

“Home Depot is an A student that got a B plus this quarter and the street likes its honor roll students so much it expects nothing less than perfection,” he added.

Cramer said he is giving Home Depot the benefit of the doubt because CEO Craig Menear blamed cold, snowy, and wet weather for its short comings, but non-weather related numbers were “terrific.”

“Wet weather delays projects and this is evident in our sales performance in the quarter,” Menear told investors on the earnings call. But “ex-weather, our business performed in line with our expectations.”

Shares of Home Depot have fallen less than 2 percent as of midday Tuesday. The stock price is down more than 1 percent over the past year but has climbed more than 8 percent in 2019.

Investors may be tempted to ditch the stock because broader housing numbers have been weak, Cramer said. Existing home sales last month dropped 8.5 percent compared to the year prior, reaching its lowest mark in more than three years. Home prices rose modestly, which could signal that momentum is easing in the housing market.

But Cramer called Home Depot, a stock he has covered for decades, a “cash machine,” citing that the company generated $13.3 billion in cash in fiscal 2018, put $24 billion in the business, paid $4.7 billion in dividends and $10 billion in buybacks.

“I come back and say, do you think that this company with all of its knowledge and might would step up its buyback and increase its dividend so dramatically if it were really concerned about these short-term fluctuations?” he said

Cramer said companies periodically can disappoint and still “hit out of the park in the next quarter.”

“Tomorrow I expect some downgrades from the sunshine soldiers and summer patriots. To me that’s when you pounce,” he said. “I don’t know how long this opportunity will last. I do know that the company’s going to use it to buy in the open market. That’s good enough for me.”

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