UPDATE 2-Pool Corp Q3 misses Street, cuts FY EPS view; shrs fall

* Q3 EPS $0.35 ex items vs est $0.41

* Cuts FY EPS view to $0.95 to $1, ex items

* Sees 2009 new pool construction down 50 pct in US

* Sees no significant change in pool construction in 2010

* Shares down 12 pct (Recasts; adds conference call details, analyst comment; updates share movement)

By Abhishek Takle

BANGALORE, Oct 27 (Reuters) - Pool Corp's (POOL.O) quarterly profit missed estimates, hurt by weak construction and poor weather, and the swimming pool products distributor cut its full-year earnings forecast, sending its shares down 12 percent.

The company now expects to earn 95 cents a share to $1 a share, excluding items, in 2009, down from its prior view of $1 a share to $1.05 a share.

On a conference call with analysts, the company said it expects new pool construction to fall about 50 percent in the United States in 2009.

It does not see a significant change in new pool and irrigation construction in 2010.

Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Joan Storms said, "The new pool business is still going to be challenging probably for the next couple of years and a lot of that's going to depend on what happens in the credit markets."

The company has been grappling with diminishing sales as new construction has taken a back seat in a recessionary environment, exacerbated by a battered housing market that has affected its key markets such as California, Florida and Texas.

However, Pool said the adverse economic factors were subsiding and that sales in markets such as Florida were up year-over-year for the quarter.

The pace of decline in sales had also slowed sequentially in California -- the company's largest market -- and Texas.

The company also said it expects the fourth-quarter sales to fall at a rate slightly lower than the decline year-to-date.

"Like I communicated last quarter, I believe that 2009 marks the trough of the vicious cycle that began for this industry in the second half of 2006," Chief Executive Manuel Perez de la Mesa told analysts on the call.

THIRD-QUARTER MISS

For the third quarter, the company posted a loss of $9.3 million, or 19 cents a share, compared with a profit of $22.1 million, or 45 cents a share, last year.

Net sales fell 13 percent $430.1 million.

Excluding items, the company earned 35 cents a share, below analysts average expectations of 41 cents a share, before items, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Shares of the Covington, Louisiana-based company fell as much as 12 percent to $20.13, before paring some losses to trade down 10 percent at $20.65 Tuesday on Nasdaq. (Reporting by Abhishek Takle in Bangalore; Editing by Ratul Ray Chaudhuri and Aradhana Aravindan)