Home Depot, the world’s largest home improvement retailer, raised the top end of its earnings guidance for the year on Wednesday but said the outlook could only be regarded as ‘less bad’.

The US group, which has been suffering from the impact of the declining US housing market for three years, had forecast a 7 per cent fall in earnings per share. It said on Wednesday the earnings fall could be less severe to flat, although it still expected sales to fall by about 9 per cent.