So far, 2008 hasn't been a banner year for Home Depot.

In January, the Atlanta-based home improvement retailer laid off 500 people from corporate headquarters.

In February, it announced its first ever year-over-year sales decline.

In April, it announced the net loss of 970 jobs after reorganizing its human resources staff.

And Thursday, it announced 15 stores will close, affecting 1,300 employees. Home Depot is also shelving 50 planned new stores.

The 15 stores that will close are mostly in the Northeast and Midwest. None are in Atlanta.

"Closing a store is always a difficult decision because it affects both our people and our communities," Home Depot Chief Executive Frank Blake said in a memo to employees obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "At the same time, the stores we're closing weren't meeting our expected returns and weren't projected to anytime soon."

He told employees that after reviewing all 1,970 U.S. stores, no others are being closed.

The closings show the company is reeling from the "perfect storm" of higher gas prices, higher food and health care costs and the real estate bubble bursting, said Wayne Hood, managing director of BMO Capital Markets, an equity research firm.

Wall Street seemed to approve Home Depot's fixes.

"The stock is up 5 percent today, and the market is up 1.5 percent," noted Hood, who is based in Atlanta.

Home Depot's shares closed at $29.87, up $1.07.

The bad news for Home Depot (and rival Lowe's), Hood said, is that the U.S. market is saturated with stores and the housing market is flooded with inventory, leaving little opportunity for growth. Store closings and layoffs "are not atypical to see when you have a weak economy," he said.

Home Depot will record a $586 million pretax charge related to the closings and the 50 shelved stores. Home Depot didn't publicly revise its earnings forecast for fiscal 2008 to reflect the charge.

But in the memo to staff, Blake said: "We will record a write-off to our first-quarter earnings. While this will reduce our earnings per share for the year, it does not mean that we're losing money or that the company is in any sort of financial trouble."

Home Depot said earnings from continuing operations are expected to decline between 19 percent and 24 percent, for earnings per share of $1.73 to $1.84.

By slowing new store growth, Home Depot will cut capital spending by $1 billion over the next three years. The money will be freed up to improve existing stores and possibly for share repurchases. Home Depot still expects to build 36 U.S. stores this year.