Home Depot sales continue to fall in 3Q, but results top Wall Street's expectations

Home Depot (HD) sales continue to slide with Americans wrestling with inflation and it narrowed its outlook for the year. But the nation's biggest home improvement retailer topped expectations for the quarter.  

Third-quarter revenue slipped 3% to $37.71 billion, Home Depot Inc. said Tuesday, which is better than the $37.52 billion that analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research predicted. 

Sales at stores open at least a year, a key gauge of a retailer's health, dropped 3.1%. In the U.S., they declined 3.5%. 

Customers were focused on smaller, less expensive projects.