Beazer Homes Stock Slips On Q1 Earnings Miss: Retail Stays Cautious

Shares of Beazer Homes USA Inc. ($BZH) fell 10.65% in after-hours trading on Thursday after home builder missed EPS estimates in the first-quarter,  but retail sentiment stayed neutral.

Beazer posted $0.10 in earnings per share compared to $0.31 quoted by Wall Street analysts.

However, the company’s revenues beat estimates, coming in at $468.95 million, above the $464.42 million that analysts expected. Its first quarter homebuilding revenue stood at $460.4 million, up 20.9% year-over-year. The increase was driven by a 22.1% increase in home closings to 907 homes.

“Despite a challenging new home sales environment, we had a productive first quarter and made progress toward our full year and multi-year goals,” Allan P. Merrill, chairman and CEO of Beazer, said. “Net new orders and closings increased year-over-year, supported by a 20% higher community count. We also grew our total lot position by about 10% versus the prior year, primarily through options, positioning us for further community count growth in the years ahead.”

Looking to the full fiscal year, Merill said that despite the affordability challenges of the near-term environment, the company is confident about a double-digit return on capital employed this year.

Sentiment on Stocktwits stayed ‘neutral’ compared to a day ago. Message volumes were ‘extremely low’

BZH sentiment meter an message volumes on Jan 31 as of 1 am ET

At the end of the first quarter, Beazer had $335.4 million of available liquidity, including $80.4 million of unrestricted cash and $255.0 million of remaining capacity under the unsecured revolving credit facility.

Beazer stock is up 1% year-to-date.

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