The other day the talking heads said that housing was bottoming, now im hearing a different story. Who should I believe. The Federal Reserve is saying everything is fine or Robert Toll. Hmmmm. Toll Brothers (TOL - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr - Rating) said Thursday that its quarterly profit fell 67% from a year ago, and the company lowered its full-year outlook amid continued weak housing sales. The country's largest builder of luxury homes reported net income in its fiscal first-quarter, ended Jan. 31, of $54.3 million, or 33 cents a share, down from $163.9 million, or 98 cents per share, a year earlier. Analysts expected earnings of 29 cents a share, according to Thomson Financial. The earnings beat mostly stemmed from lower-than-expected land charges and higher margins, said Bank of America analyst Daniel Oppenheim in a research note Thursday. Land charges totaled $96.9 million, within the company's prior guidance of $60 million to $160 million. The charges relate to write-offs and writedowns of unprofitable land that Toll either owns or has options to buy. Excluding writedowns and the impairment charge, first-quarter earnings per share were down 27% to 72 cents. New home orders fell 33% to 1,544 units. The steepest drop came in the Western region of the U.S., where orders fell 65% from a year earlier amid particular weakness in Arizona, California, Colorado and Nevada. For the fiscal year ending in October, Toll lowered its earnings forecast to a range of $1.46 to $1.85 a share from its previous guidance of $1.58 to $2.08 per share. Wall Street projects earnings per share of $1.47. In a prepared statement, Chairman and CEO Robert Toll provided some cautious comments about the market for new home sales. "There are too many soft markets at this stage of the selling season to call a general upturn in the new home market," he said. "Demand varies greatly from week to week in individual markets." Oppenheim said he views Toll's comments as less positive than two weeks ago, when the builder reported its orders for the quarter and signaled an uptick in demand in January and early February. "We think this [less positive commentary] is a reflection of choppy market conditions and the soft traffic at the start of the spring season, consistent with what we have seen in early results of our February Survey of Real Estate Agents," Oppenheim wrote.
Both. Robert Toll is a complete liar. I remember him saying in June (I believe) of 06 that things never looked better. Yeah right. He was saying this while he and his family were selling all their shares. Bernanke has ZERO credibility on the issue of battling inflation, which sooner or later, will sink equity markets. The real rate of inflation is so far higher than the officially compiled data that it is actually amausing (can you believe they actually exclude food and medical costs? - I mean, who eats or goes to the doctor, or gets prescription meds? Good call).