Maytag’s latest forecast of second-quarter earnings is down 25-percent. The maker of home appliances reports lower sales of its line of floor-care products, like Hoover vacuum cleaners. U-S Bancorp Piper Jaffray stockbroker Steve DeVenney wasn’t surprised.DeVenney says Maytag is not alone in its struggle. With companies seeing slowdowns and announcing layoffs, he says other workers are likely to delay purchases of big-ticket home appliances, which hurts Maytag’s sales.He says with the fed’s five rate-cuts lately, and another one likely before long, he thinks times will improve for the company. Maytag stock peaked around the first of May 1999, at nearly 75 dollars a share, and DeVenney says while he might not recommend a “buy” right now, he wouldn’t tell clients to sell their Maytag stock.Just over a week ago, Maytag announced it’s paying 325 million dollars to acquire the Amana division which includes major appliances and microwave ovens. Maytag has 12-thousand employees, about 35-hundred of them in Newton.
