ATLANTA (AP) — The Home Depot posted strong profits in its final quarter of 2022, but a tepid outlook for this year sank shares of the home improvement retailer before markets opened Tuesday.

The Atlanta company had a fourth-quarter profit of $3.36 billion, or $3.30 per share, which is 3 cents better than Wall Street had expected, according to a survey of analysts by Zacks Investment Research.

Quarterly revenue of $35.83 billion was just shy of expectations, but the focus was on the retailer’s projections for this year.

Home Depot sees a decline for annual per-share earnings in the mid-single-digit percentage, which caught industry analysts off guard. Wall Street was also projecting a slight uptick in sales, but Home Depot said revenue would be flat.

The company also said Tuesday that it would spend $1 billion on wage increases for its U.S. and Canadian hourly workers, starting this month.

Starting pay will be at least $15 per hour in all markets.

Shares slid 4% in premarket trading.

_____

A portion of this story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on HD at https://www.zacks.com/ap/HD