Earning Plays

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Friday, June 27
Builder KB Home's loss widens on housing woes(8:15 am ET)
BOSTON (MarketWatch) -- KB Home (KBH: news, chart, profile) before Friday's opening bell reported a second-quarter loss of $255.9 million, or $3.30 a share, compared with a loss of $148.7 million, or $1.93 a share, in the year-ago period. Total revenue slipped to $639.1 million from $1.41 billion, the Los Angeles-based residential builder said. The latest quarter's results included pretax charges of $176.5 million for inventory and joint venture impairments and the abandonment of land option contracts, and $24.6 million for goodwill impairment. "Despite substantially lower home prices, relatively low interest rates and an abundance of choices, potential new home buyers remain reluctant to purchase a home," said KB Home Chief Executive Jeffrey Mezger in a statement.
Steelcase's first-quarter profit falls(7:53 am ET)
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Steelcase Inc. (SCS: news, chart, profile) said Friday that its first-quarter profit fell to $22.1 million, or 16 cents a share, from $33.6 million, or 23 cents a share. For the quarter ended May 30, revenue increased to $815.7 million from $808.5 million a year earlier. The Grand Rapids, Mich., furniture maker said it expects second-quarter earnings of 15 cents to 20 cents a share, including restructuring costs. Shares of Steelcase closed Thursday at $11.49.
Sony Ericsson warns of falling mobile phone demand(7:11 am ET)
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Sony Ericsson, the mobile-phone making venture of Sony (SNE: news, chart, profile) and Ericsson (ERIC: news, chart, profile) , warned that its second-quarter pretax profit will be "about break even" on falling gross margins, due to moderating demand for mid-to-high end mobile phones and a delay in shipping new products. Sony Ericsson expects to ship 24 million phones during the quarter at an average price of 115 euros.
Berkely Group profit up 1.7%, delays shareholder payout(2:29 am ET)
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- U.K. home builder Berkeley Group Holdings (UK:BKG: news, chart, profile) said Friday that its profit for the year ending April 30 rose 1.7% to 137.8 million pounds ($273.7 million) as it also revealed plans to delay a shareholder payout. Revenue for the year rose 8% to 991.5 million pounds and pretax profit was up 3.2% at 194.3 million pounds, but was short of the consensus forecast of around 201 million pounds. Under a strategy introduced in 2004 the group has returned 9 pounds a share to shareholders, but it said Friday that it will delay a further payment of 3 pounds per share by up to 3 years. It also said it will restructure the planned payment so it can be paid through a series of dividends or opportunistic share buybacks.