Lowe’s (LOW) shares dropped in premarket trading after the home improvement retailer said it expects sales in established stores to drop at least 5 percent in 2008. The company said it made $408 million, or 28 cents a share, for the fourth quarter ended Feb. 1, down from the year-ago $613 million, or 40 cents a share. Sales fell to $10.38 billion from $10.41 billion a year earlier. Same-store sales plunged 7.6 percent for the quarter.

“Fourth quarter and fiscal year 2007 sales fell short of our plan as we faced an unprecedented decline in housing turnover, falling home prices in many areas and turbulent mortgage markets that impacted both sentiment related to home improvement purchases as well as consumers’ access to capital,” said CEO Robert A. Niblock. He said Lowe’s expects sales to remain soft for the rest of this year, though he expressed hope that the second half would be better than the first as Fed interest rate cuts start to work their way through the economy. “As a result,” he said, “many of the headwinds facing the housing market and the home improvement industry should lessen, and consumers’ confidence in investing in and improving their homes should improve.”

In the meantime, the company said it expects to make between $1.50 and $1.58 a share for the year - far short of the $1.76-a-share analyst consensus estimate. With rival Home Depot (HD) due to post its own fourth-quarter numbers Tuesday morning, investors in the housing business are bracing for more depressing news.

Comcast (CMCSA) is trying to get back in investors’ good graces. The Philadelphia-based cable giant posted a stronger-than-expected fourth quarter, rolled out another big stock buyback plan and said it will pay a quarterly dividend for the first time in nearly a decade. Comcast made $602 million, or 20 cents a share, up from the year-ago $390 million, or 13 cents a share. Revenue rose 14 percent from a year ago to $8.01 billion. Analysts were looking for a 17-cent profit on sales of $7.9 billion. The solid quarterly showing breaks a string of disappointing results at Comcast that had sent the stock plunging 40 percent from its highs over the past year, in spite of Comcast’s efforts to put a floor under its stock through an earlier stock-repurchase plan.

“In 2007 we delivered very healthy growth in revenue and operating cash flow, added substantial revenue generating units and generated significant earnings growth - despite a weak economy and intensified competition in the second half of the year,” said CEO Brian Roberts. “For 2008, we are confident about our competitive position and our ability to further grow our business, as illustrated by our outlook for 2008 free cash flow growth of at least 20%.”

Underlining that optimism, Comcast said it will start paying quarterly dividends at a 6.25-cent rate and plow an additional $7 billion into buying back stock. Shareholders can only hope the latest buyback will help Comcast reverse the decline in its shares. The company spent more than $3 billion buying back stock last year, but it paid an average of $23 a share - a 30 percent premium to the stock’s closing price Wednesday. Say what you will about returning cash to shareholders, but that’s money down the drain.

General Motors (GM) posted a better-than-expected fourth quarter and set plans for a new round of employee buyouts. The automaker lost $1.53 billion, or $2.70 a share, from continuing operations for the quarter ended Dec. 31. On an adjusted basis, excluding restructuring costs and other charges, the company made $46 million, or 8 cents a share. That’s down from a 32-cent adjusted profit last year but much better than the 64-cent loss Wall Street analysts were looking for. Revenue fell to $47.1 billion from $50.8 billion a year earlier, as GM completed the sale of a majority interest in its GMAC financing unit last year and lost the revenue from that business.

“We’re pleased with the positive improvement trend in our automotive results, especially given the challenging conditions in important markets like the U.S. and Germany,” said CEO Rick Wagoner, “but we have more work to do to achieve acceptable profitability and positive cash flow.” Indeed, for the full year, GM posted a loss of $38.7 billion, or $68.45 a share, after a third-quarter writedown of deferred tax assets. In its latest bid to bring down costs, GM reached an agreement to offer buyouts to all 74,000 workers covered by its contract with the United Auto Workers. The buyout push represents GM’s latest attempt to slash its costs by paring its well-paid union workforce.

But at Naked Capitalism, Yves Smith points to a piece by investment newsletter publisher Porter Stansbury that contends all the restructuring efforts in the world can’t insulate GM from a depressing economic reality: It is slowly bleeding to death. “There aren’t any easy answers,” Stansbury writes in a mock letter to GM investors that notes the company’s weak profitability and its crushing long-term liabilities. “And all of the possible solutions will be extremely painful to existing shareholders.”

Thursday appears likely to bring another Cisco (CSCO) skid. Shares of the networking giant fell 8% to $21 and change in after-hours trading Wednesday, after CEO John Chambers said the company’s customers are growing increasingly cautious as recession fears sweep the globe. He trimmed third-quarter sales-growth targets in the wake of a “challenging” January, Scott Moritz reports at TheStreet.com. Slowing spending by big U.S. companies came as no shock, given Chambers’ repeated warnings back in November that conditions were looking “lumpy.” But analyst Mark Sue at RBC, who rates the stock outperform, tells Bloomberg TV that he was a bit surprised at the latest quarter’s signs that the slowdown is hitting sales in Europe too. Still, he says he believes the stock is probably nearing a bottom at around $20 a share or so - a call that may be put to the test in coming days, given the sharp selling so far this year in big tech names from Intel (INTC) and Apple (AAPL) to Google (GOOG) and Yahoo (YHOO).

A four-year-long restructuring is paying dividends at Kodak (EK). The imaging company swung to a fourth-quarter profit from continuing operations of $92 million, or 31 cents a share, from a year-ago continuing operations loss of $15 million, or a nickel a share. Revenue rose 3% from a year ago to $3.22 billion. Revenue from Kodak’s digital side - the business that Kodak has chosen to emphasize over film sales, at the cost of nearly 28,000 job cuts since 2004 - rose 15% from a year ago to $2.26 billion. Earnings in the digital business rose to $146 million from $141 million a year earlier. Kodak chief Antonio Perez cited last year’s rollout of Kodak’s standalone digital photo printer as a sign of the company’s renewed purpose. “We successfully entered the $50 billion consumer inkjet market and exceeded our first-year printer sales goal,” he said in Wednesday’s press release. “What’s more, third-party data indicates that Kodak is enjoying a 30% price premium over the industry average.” For the first time in years, the picture at Kodak actually looks pretty good.

Motorola (MOT) continues to spin its wheels. The wireless giant said its fourth-quarter profit from continuing operations fell to $111 million, or a nickel a share, from the year-ago $523 million, or 21 cents a share. Excluding restructuring charges, the company made 14 cents a share, a penny better than the Wall Street analyst consensus estimate. Motorola cited strong results at its networking businesses, the mellifluously named Home & Networks Mobility and Enterprise Mobility Solutions units, but said its handset division “remains challenged.” The handset business swung to a $388 million operating loss from a year-ago profit of $341 million, as sales plunged 38 percent year-over-year. 

Indeed, the handset business is so challenged that Motorola - which has been losing market share to industry leader Nokia (NOK) and others - expects to lose money for the first quarter. The company forecast an operating loss of 5 to 7 cents a share for the quarter, where analysts were looking for a profit of a dime a share. That projection sent the stock - already trading within a dollar of its 52-week low - tumbling 11 percent in early action to just over $11 a share.

“We are focused on aggressively rationalizing the company’s cost structure and working to get Mobile Devices back on track,” said CEO Greg Brown, who was tapped late last year to step in for the departing Ed Zander. “The recovery in Mobile Devices will take longer than expected and there is a lot more work to be done.” Given the poor results at Motorola’s handset business and the sharp decline of the company’s stock, Brown may soon be hearing from restive shareholder Carl Icahn.

Ambac (ABK) is looking to sell itself or tap an outside investor. The big bond insurer, which last week suffered a ratings downgrade and was forced to pull a planned $1 billion capital-raising plan, said it “is evaluating strategic alternatives with a number of potential parties.” Ambac didn’t offer further information, but reiterated that it believes the market is overreacting to the company’s perceived financial straits.

Of course, the market’s response doesn’t seem totally out of line, given that just this morning the company posted a loss of $3.3 billion, or $31.85 a share, for the fourth quarter, reflecting more than $5 billion in mark-to-market losses on its credit derivatives portfolio. Ambac has said it believes the market prices don’t reflect the economic performance of those positions.

Still, new chief Michael Callen said, “The disappointing bottom line for the fourth quarter and the year, resulting from the unprecedented turmoil in the financial markets, is a set back for Ambac. The poor credit market conditions have severely impacted asset values. Ambac is committed to ensuring that its valuations appropriately reflect current market conditions.” Sounds like more markdowns could be on the way.

Bank of America (BAC) took a big hit in the fourth quarter. The nation’s largest consumer bank posted a 95 percent plunge in quarterly earnings, to $268 million, or a nickel a share, from a year ago as BofA added $1.33 billion to its reserves for credit losses. The bank posted a $5.44 billion loss to its trading account, as BofA took writedowns on its holdings of collateralized debt obligations, reversing the year-ago trading profit of $460 million. Bank of America also took a $400 million loss to support some of its Columbia Management cash funds that had invested in debt that subsequently defaulted or was downgraded.

“Our fourth quarter results were severely impacted by ongoing dislocations in capital markets and the slowing economy,” said CEO Kenneth D. Lewis. “Even given that environment, we certainly are not pleased with our performance. However, we are cautiously optimistic about 2008, though we believe economic growth will be anemic at best in the first half.”

Not everyone is optimistic about what’s going on at Bank of America. At Naked Capitalism, Yves Smith writes that it appears Bank of America may not stand behind the debt issued by Countrywide (CFC) - a move that could leave Countrywide debtholders with big losses once the Bank of America-Countrywide deal closes later this year. Investors in Countrywide probably feel they are all too familiar with losses as it is.

General Electric (GE) posted a solid fourth-quarter profit report early Friday. Earnings from continuing operations rose to $6.8 billion, or 68 cents a share, from the year-ago $5.9 billion, or 58 cents a share. Revenue rose 18 percent from a year ago to $48.6 billion, reflecting organic growth - excluding the effect of currency translation and acquisitions - of 10 percent. The biggest gains came at GE’s biggest business, the infrastructure unit that builds things like water purification systems. There, profit rose 26 percent from a year ago on a 30 percent revenue gain. Meanwhile, earnings at the GE Money unit rose 7 percent from a year ago, despite a $400 million addition to the unit’s loan loss reserves.

“We have built the company to outperform in this environment,” CEO Jeff Immelt said. “We have strengthened the portfolio for growth, restructured to lower our cost, maintained our Triple A credit rating and stayed true to our risk management principles.” In an age of multibillion-dollar writedowns, that’s an accomplishment in itself.

Even JPMorgan Chase (JPM) is disappointing investors this earnings season. The big bank said fourth-quarter profits fell to $2.97 billion, or 86 cents a share, from the year-ago $4.53 billion, or $1.26 a share. The 34 percent drop in net income left the bank shy of the 93-cent Wall Street analyst consensus estimate. Like Citi (C) before it, JPMorgan was hit by a sharp rise in money set aside to cover loan losses, particularly in its card business, where the provision for credit losses rose 40 percent from a year ago, and in its retail financial services unit, where the provision quadrupled. JPMorgan was also hit by a 35 percent drop in revenue at its investment banking unit, which was socked by a big writedown of subprime-related holdings and a sharp slowdown in the debt markets. Surprisingly, one area of strength was the company’s mortgage business, where revenue rose nearly tenfold from a year ago to $332 million.

But CEO Jamie Dimon, who has been widely lauded in recent months for steering clear of the collateralized debt obligation mess that has hobbled Citi and Merrill Lynch (MER), among others, spoke in Wednesday’s press release of the need to buckle down with the economy slowing. “We remain extremely cautious as we enter 2008,” he said. “If the economy weakens substantially from here – for which, as a company, we need to be prepared – it will negatively affect business volumes and drive credit costs higher. However, we feel well-positioned given the investments and actions we have taken over the past few years to improve our businesses’ operating margins, create a stronger systems infrastructure and build a fortress balance sheet.” With all the tumult in the banking sector, that fortress is likely to remain attractive to investors regardless of Wednesday’s earnings shortfall.