Appliance maker Whirlpool is a good guage of the underlying strength of the consumer and the initial reaction to earnings is poor. Shares fall as low as $120.26 from $131.33 at the close. Since then though, they've bounced back and are now trading near $128.
Shares hit a two-year low in regular trading as the market fretted about the impact of higher rates on household spending.
In the current report, revenues were $4.78 billion compared to $5.34 billion expected.
CEO Marc Bitzer said in the release:
While our Q3 results were impacted by ongoing macroeconomic headwinds and continued elevated levels of inflation that resulted in slowing demand, we remain on track to deliver the second-best year in our 111-year history in 2022 ... Looking ahead, we see these
challenges persisting into the first half of 2023, however, we believe we have the right actions in place that will allow us to navigate through the current environment while advancing our portfolio transformation and delivering strong shareholder returns."
Regionally and excluding currency changes, the largest decline in sales was in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, which was down 16.7%. However, excluding Russia that fell to -8.0%. That compares to North America -7.4%, LatAm -10.4% and Asia -1.2%.
They noted that North America was "impacted by aggressive inventory reduction.
The company took its full-year 2022 revenues guidance down by 9%.
