Refer to the financial statements of The Home Depot in Appendix A and Lowe’s in Appendix B at the end of this book, or download the annual reports from the Cases section in the Connect library.
Required:
1. The number of issued shares are shown in the first column of the statement of stockholders’ equity. Had Lowe’s issued more or fewer shares of common stock than The Home Depot at the beginning of February 2014?
2. From the Retained Earnings column in the statement of stockholders’ equity, what total amount of cash dividends did Lowe’s declare during the year ended January 31, 2014? Com-pared to The Home Depot, is Lowe’s policy on dividends better, worse, or just different?
3. How have Lowe’s net earnings changed over the past three years? How has the company’s basic earnings per share changed over the past three years? Is the change in EPS driven solely by the change in earnings, or were they also influenced by changes in the number of shares issued and outstanding? Consider the first column of the statement of stockholders’ equity.