It is not a surprise that the residential construction industry has been rocked by the recession of the past few years. The fall in home values was one of the dominos that set in motion what has become known as the credit crisis that affected so many other industries in one way or another. Firms like Beazer Homes (BZH) were faced with monumental challenge of making their living off of building new homes, but the market was already dealing with a supply overhang. Residential builders halted many projects and were forced to write-down the value of the land that they had purchased near the height of the bubble.

There is no doubt that real challenges remain for the industry, and it will take quite some time for sales and earnings to return to peak levels. However, instead of relying on business as usual efforts and patiently waiting for the market to rebound, Beazer Homes recently announced that they have been busy at work retooling their sales process through the use of technology. Recently, the company announced their efforts to grab a larger piece of the recovery through a customized customer relations solution with Salesforce.com (CRM) and an agile consulting firm Bluewolf.

Below we highlight the best performing Russell 3,000 stocks since the March 9th, 2009 low as well as since the October 9th, 2007 market peak. As you'll see, the majority of the stocks that have done the best since March 9th are still down significantly from their 10/9/07 prices.

The real winners are the stocks that are up the most since the October 9th, 2007 market peak. These companies have seen big gains even as the market pulled back more than 60% before rallying again this year. Kirkland's (KIRK) has done the best since 10/9/07 with a gain of 1,111%. KIRK rose 170% during the 10/9/07-3/9/09 bear, and has since rallied an additional 348%. Other stocks that did well during the bear market and the current bull market include BSTC, BPSG, GTE, MITI, EBIX, JRCC, and NFLX.

Six straight days of gains for the Dow Jones Industrial Average is impressive, but yesterday's session is the inverse of recent days that began slow or even under pressure only to fight off resistance and close in the plus column. It goes without saying (or writing) that the market needs to take a pit stop, or for some a freefall, to get back to the long-term trend.

Of course, that being said, there is also an underlying angst that the market can't stall or can't afford to be down for too long. Considering how quickly the NASDAQ Composite gave up 5.0% just a couple of weeks ago there is certain fragility to the rally that has been built on very light volume.

4:13 PM, Nov 10, 2009 --

• NYSE down 8.9 (0.1%) to 7,126.42.
• DJIA up 20 (0.2%) to 10,247.
• S&P 500 down 0.07 (0.01%) to 1,093.
• Nasdaq down 2.98 (0.1%) to 2,151.

GLOBAL SENTIMENT

F4Q09 Earnings Call

November 10, 2009 10:00 am ET

New home sales came in at 31 thousand for September which disappointed investors who had been hoping for more like 34 thousand. The market worried that the real estate market had once again fallen off a cliff as the home tax credit was ending. When the numbers came out, the homebuilders sold off brutally. I think we have to keep these numbers in "historical" perspective. This year's dismal home sales are way below just about anything that has been seen in 45 years.

Between February 1990 until October 2008, no single month came in at less 32,000. Between January 1963 to January 2008, only 18 months came at less than 32,000 and many of these occurred in the 1960s and early 1970s. This September was the worst September since 1981. From 1998 to 2007, Septembers ranged from 53,000-94,000.

In distinct contrast to the existing home sales report last week, new home sales were ugly in September, falling 3.6% for the month and down 7.8% year over year. The seasonally adjusted annual rate in September was 402.000 down from 417,000 in August, which was revised down from the originally reported 429,000. This came in well below consensus expectations of 440,000.

The good news in the report was that inventories also continued to decline, to 251,000 from 261,000 in August (down 3.8%) and from 395,000 a year ago (down 36.5%). That kept the months of supply metric even at 7.5 months, a big improvement over the 10.9 months of a year ago, and the scary peak of 12.4 months in January.

The home builders represent probably the most "humbled" group of stocks out there, a result of a housing debacle that has seen falling home prices, credit shortfalls and waves of foreclosures.

Home builders also represent some of the best "upside" in the market. The stocks have fallen hard, some trading at one fifteenth of their 2005 share prices. And those share prices have fallen so low that the thirteen "biggest" builders total collectively less than $22 billion in market cap. To put the number in perspective, 138 publicly traded companies in the U.S. trade at market caps of $22 billion or higher. Corning (GLW), Costco (COST), DirectTV (DTV), Potash (IPI), and Ford (F) each have market caps higher than the sum total of all publicly traded home builders. Add up TOL, LEN, PHM, NVR, RYL, MDC, SPF, HOV, BZH, KBH, DHI, MTH, MHO and you get the price of Ford.

Yesterday's existing home sales numbers - down

... and the new home sales number today - up less than one point

A modest downtick in existing homes sales in August (barely visible in the third chart above) was the reason that the market sold off today, according to a Bloomberg headline, but I think that's a stretch. As all three of these charts show, there has been a distinct turn for the better in the housing market.

The months' supply of unsold homes has dropped significantly, thanks mainly to a pickup in sales activity, and the vacancy rate of homes nationwide as dropped, although the rate is still among the highest ever recorded.

In August, the seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of existing home sales was 5.10 million, a decline of 2.7% from the 5.24 million pace in July, and well below the 5.35 million pace expected by the consensus of economists. However, it was a 3.4% improvement from the 4.93 million pace of a year ago.

The month-over-month decline came despite mortgage rates being slightly lower in August (5.19%) than in July (5.22%). Rates are well below the 6.48% of a year ago. The median price, which is not the best measure of home prices since it can be affected by mix shifts, fell 12.5% from a year ago to $177,700.

Beazer Homes (BZH), that flea-infested, bedraggled home builder dog of a stock, has not only learned to run but has left its peers in the dust since I recommended the stock on August 10 at $4 a share (article).

Less than 6 weeks later, it stands at $5.97, a fifty percent climb.

The August data on Building Permits and Housing Starts show a slight increase for both nationwide, but the gains all came from multi-family structures, primarily in the Northeast. Both the total permits and the total starts numbers were in line with consensus expectations.

Looking first at permits, the nationwide total rose to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 579,000, a 2.7% increase from 564,000 in July, but 32.4% below a year ago. The Northeast was by far the strongest region with a 14.3% monthly increase, but that still left it 24.7% below year ago levels.

One of the interesting things about markets is how supply is created by demand. If there is someone willing to spend money, there will be someone that figures out how to sell them something.

One of the ways in which this has manifested itself during the thaw that has occurred since Lehman’s collapse froze things solid is in the lending markets. Banks, bloated with gobs of festering assets were taking the easy way out, hoping that the decay would reverse itself magically, but were unable to lend in the meantime. Cash reasserted itself as king.

Sometimes it's best not to buy the top-quality companies. This is one of those times when the worst stock can outpace its peers. It's hard for me to give up on buying companies with the best fundamentals. That's my training. But that's not where the action is. This is a market that loves "junk".

Look at retail. Take the Buckle (BKE) and Chico's (CHS). Back in February, you would have read that BKE had 14% same store sales while CHS's were -13%. So, if you'd bought BKE rather than "dud" CHS, would you have been pleased with the result? No way, CHS tripled in value while BKE underperformed gaining 22%.

Sentiment

Stocks opened higher on better-than-expected jobs data and have been able to hold the gains late into the trading day. According to data released from the Labor Department Friday morning, The US economy lost 247,000 jobs during the month of July. The decline was much less than the 443,000 in June (revised from 467,000) and also better the economist projections. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate edged down to 9.4 percent from 9.5 percent. Economists were looking for an increase to 9.6 percent. Meanwhile, average hourly earnings rose .2 percent, compared to expectations for a .1 percent.

Outside of that, there hasn't been a lot of news to guide trading. AIG (AIG) surged 18.7 percent after the company reported earnings that beat Street estimates by more than $1 per share. The Select Sector Financials (XLF) are up 2.9 percent and have added 10.6 percent on the week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 130 and the NASDAQ 29.

• Fannie asks for cash after loss. Fannie Mae (FNM) posted a heavy Q2 loss of $14.8B (see details below), its eighth quarterly loss in a row, prompting the mortgage lender to ask the government for a $10.7B capital injection. Fannie's cumulative losses over the last two years now stand at $101.6B, and the company has drawn $44.9B from the Treasury since April. The company said "we do not expect to operate profitably in the foreseeable future. We expect that we will experience adverse financial effects" during the fight against foreclosures. Shares fell 12.7% in after hours trading. Shares -11.4% premarket (7:00 ET).
• Greenberg settles SEC charges. Hank Greenberg, former CEO and chairman of AIG (AIG), agreed to pay $15M to settle SEC charges accusing him of improper accounting transactions between 2000 and 2005. The SEC also charged former CFO Howard Smith, saying the two men 'were responsible for material misstatements' that created a 'false impression' of AIG's financial results. Smith settled with the SEC for $1.5M. (Read the SEC's statement)
• Broker admits lying in fraud case. Julian Tzolov, a former Credit Suisse (CS) broker, testified before a jury that he and former partner Eric Butler lied to clients and sent them inaccurate information to cover up risky investments. In one of the first criminal trials connected to the credit crunch, Tzolov said he and Butler told clients certain securities were backed by government-guaranteed student loans when this was not the case, and that they did so in part to receive higher commissions. Butler is on trial for fraud, and Tzolov was called as a witness after pleading guilty to securities fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy and bail jumping last month.
• NYT looking to sell Globe. The New York Times (NYT) confirmed for the first time that it has hired Goldman Sachs to help sell its Boston Globe and Worcester Telegram & Gazette newspapers, as well as their websites. In a regulatory filing, the company said the possible sale is part of a strategic restructuring in response to a heavy downturn in advertising and the migration of readers to the internet.
• RBS posts loss on bad loans. Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) posted a loss of £1.04B in H1, falling far short of the £1.1B profit consensus, after setting aside £7.52B ($12.62B) to cover bad loans. The bank expects impairments to remain at 'elevated levels,' and "there is every sign that our financial performance over the next two years, at a group level, will be poor due to the severe economic downturn in 2008 and 2009 and consequent impact on impairments and funding costs." Shares -14% premarket (7:00 ET).
• FDIC chided for lax supervision. An agency watchdog found the FDIC failed to act in a timely manner to limit the commercial real estate losses that caused the collapse of two banks in Washington and Georgia. The watchdog's report said the FDIC could have exercised 'greater supervisory concern' after finding weaknesses in the banks' loan portfolios. (Read reports I and II (.pdf))
• Twitter falls silent. Twitter and Facebook suffered outages and delays yesterday after denial of service attacks, raising the possibility of 'a single, massively coordinated attack' on social networking sites. Both services have been restored. Google (GOOG) managed to fend off a similar attack yesterday.
• Exchanges back away from flash. The Nasdaq stock exchange and BATS exchange announced separately that they're both voluntarily ending the flash trading they started this year, effective September 1. The moves come amid an SEC investigation into the practice and ahead of a likely ban. Direct Edge, a fast growing rival that has used flash trading since 2006, continues to defend the practice.
• Morgan leaves TARP behind. Morgan Stanley (MS) paid $950M to repurchase the warrant it issued the government, bringing Morgan's total payment to the government, including dividends, to $1.268B. CEO John Mack struck a positive note, saying "we appreciate the critical role that the U.S. government played last fall in helping stabilize the banking industry and financial markets at a moment of unprecedented crisis."
• AmEx sees loan loss improvement. American Express (AXP) said write-offs tied to bad credit-card debt fell sharply for the second straight month, to 9.2% in July from 9.7% in June, and CEO Kenneth Chenault said he's seeing internal credit metrics improve for the first time in 18 months. Despite the positive improvements, analysts warned it's too soon to call a sector recovery, with many attributing the drop in charge-offs to a seasonal trend. In the specific case of American Express, Chenault was very clear that the improvements of the last two months are 'not seasonality.'
• Clunkers gets new funds. As expected, the Senate approved an additional $2B for the 'Cash for Clunkers' program. The measure passed 60-37.
• Jobless claims drop. Initial jobless claims came in at 550K, down 38K from a week ago (revised), and better than the 575K consensus. Continuing claims rose 69K to 6.31M.
• Same-store sales slide. Retailers reported monthly same-store sales yesterday, with most falling short of consensus estimates. July sales were hurt by the continued trend of shoppers cutting back and waiting for discounts, and by a later start to the back-to-school shopping season.

Earnings: Friday Before Open

• AIG (AIG): Q2 EPS of $2.57 vs. consensus of $1.67 (may not be comparable). Revenue of $29.5B (+48%) vs. $26B. Shares +3.6% premarket (7:10 ET). (PR)
• American Oriental Bioengineering (AOB): Q2 EPS of $0.17 misses by $0.01. Revenue of $71M (+21%) vs. $75M. (PR)
• ATP Oil & Gas (ATPG): Q2 EPS of -$0.10 beats by $0.09. Revenue of $81M (-58%) vs. $83M. (PR)
• Cimarex Energy Co (XEC): Q2 EPS of $0.46 vs. $0.41 consensus (may not be comparable). Revenue of $223M (-64%) vs. $219M. (PR)
• Magna International (MGA): Q2 EPS of -$1.29 misses by $0.28. Revenue of $3.7B (-45%) vs. $4.1M. (PR)
• Mirant Corp. (MIR): Q2 EPS of $1.12 vs. consensus of $0.49 (may not be comparable). Revenue of $496M vs. $546M.
• Senior Housing Properties Trust (SNH): Q2 FFO of $0.44 in-line. Revenue of $69M (+32%) vs. $68M. (PR)
• Warner Chilcott (WCRX): Q2 EPS of $0.44 beats by $0.04. Revenue of $251M (+7%) vs. $252M. (PR)

Earnings: Thursday After Close

• Alkermes (ALKS): FQ1 EPS of $0.01 beats by $0.09. Revenue of $47.5M (-41%) vs. $46.4M. (PR)
• Assured Guaranty (AGO): Q2 EPS of $0.46 beats by $0.10. Revenue of $115M (-3%). (PR)
• Beazer (BZH): FQ3 EPS of -$0.72 beats by $0.81. Revenue of $225M (-51%) vs. $226M. (PR)
• CBS (CBS): Q2 EPS of $0.08 beats by $0.01. Revenue of $3B (-11%) in-line. (PR)
• Chiquita (CQB): Q2 EPS of $1.95 beats by $1.13. Revenue of $955M (-4%) vs. $873M. (PR)
• Computer Sciences (CSC): FQ1 EPS of $0.85 beats by $0.34. Revenue of $3.9B (-12%) in-line. Raises full-year EPS guidance to $4.80-5.00 from $4.20-4.30, vs. $4.18. (PR)
• Crocs (CROX): Q2 EPS of -$0.06 beats by $0.15. Revenue of $198M (-11%) vs. $150M. Sees Q3 EPS of -$0.14 to -$0.16 vs. -$0.20. Sees Q3 sales of $150M-160M vs. $141M. (PR)
• DCT Industrial Trust (DCT): Q2 EPS of $0.12 misses by $0.01. Revenue of $60M (-3%) vs. $61M. (PR)
• Emulex (ELX): FQ4 EPS of $0.09 beats by $0.05. Revenue of $79M (-30%) vs. $78M. (PR)
• EOG Resources (EOG): Q2 EPS of $0.73 beats by $0.31. Revenue of $861M (-21%) vs. $966M. PR)
• Fannie Mae (FNM): Q2 EPS of -$2.67. Revenue of $5.6B (+41%). (.pdf)
• Hansen Natural (HANS): Q2 EPS of $0.60 in-line. Revenue of $300M (+6%) vs. $309M. (PR)
• Intrepid Potash (IPI): Q2 EPS of $0.19 misses by $0.04. Revenue of $73M (-30%) vs. $72M. (PR)
• Leap Wireless International (LEAP): Q2 EPS of -$0.89 misses by $0.59. Revenue of $597M (+26%) vs. $636M. Net customer additions of 203,000 (+19%). Churn of 4.4%. Reduces guidance on full-year net customer addition to 1.5M. (PR)
• Maxim Integrated Products (MXIM): FQ4 EPS of $0.11 beats by $0.10. Revenue of $395M (-21%) vs. $368M. Sees Q1 revenue of $415M-445M vs. $388M. (PR)
• Microchip Technology (MCHP): FQ1 EPS of $0.15 beats by $0.02. Revenue of $193M (-28%) vs. $190M. Gross margin in Q1 of 51.4%. Sees Q2 EPS of $0.18-0.20 vs. $0.17. Sees Q3 revenue of $206M-214M vs. $200M. (PR)
• Nvidia (NVDA): Q2 EPS of $0.07 beats by $0.09. Revenue of $777M (-13%) vs. $710M. Sees Q3 revenue up 5-7% over Q2. (PR)
• Pepco Holdings (POM): Q2 EPS of $0.11 misses by $0.13. Revenue of $2.1B (-18%) vs. $2.7B. (PR)
• Public Storage (PSA): Q2 FFO of $1.25 beats by $0.04. Revenue of $347M (-4%) vs. $394M. (PR)
• Rovi Corp. (ROVI): Q2 EPS of $0.38 beats by $0.10. Revenue of $120M (+64%) vs. $110M. (PR)
• Sapient (SAPE): Q2 EPS of $0.10 beats by $0.04. Revenue of $148M (-11%) vs. $144M. (PR)
• SandRidge Energy (SD): Q2 EPS of $0.25 beats by $0.12. EBITDA of $144M (-18%). (PR)
• Sequenom (SQNM): Q2 EPS of -$0.33 misses by $0.06. Revenue of $9M (-28%) vs. $8M. (PR)
• VeriSign (VRSN): Q2 EPS of $0.31 misses by $0.01. Revenue of $257M (+6%) vs. $255M. (PR)
• Westar Energy (WR): Q2 EPS of $0.35 in-line. Revenue of $468M (+4%) vs. $501M. (PR)

Today's Markets

Asian markets closed mostly down. European markets and U.S. futures are trending down too.

F3Q09 Earnings Call

August 6, 2009 5:00 pm ET