By Yasin Ebrahim
Investing.com - KB Home on Wednesday reported fiscal second-quarter results that fell short of estimates on both the top and bottom lines as the Covid-19 pandemic hurt demand.
KB Home (NYSE:KBH) slumped 7% in after-hours after ending the day 2% lower.
For the quarter ended March, the company reported earnings per share of $0.55, up from $0.51 a year ago, on revenue of $914 million, down from $1.02 billion. That was short of consensus estimates for earnings of $0.53 a share on revenue of $1.08 billion.
The miss on the top line comes as orders in the quarter suffered from coronavirus-led disruptions to activity as the homebuilder was forced to shutter operations
Orders fell to 1,758 in the quarter from 4,064 in the year-ago quarter.
The homebuilder delivered 2,499, down from 2,768 a year earlier at an average selling price of $364,100, down from $367,700.
“The prolonged stay-at-home public health orders, resulting economic shutdown and our conservative approach to navigating the uncertain environment significantly impacted our orders during the quarter," KB Home said.
But following a low point in April, the company said it had "experienced steady and significant improvement in our order trends beginning in May, which was further fueled by welcoming walk-in traffic to our communities."
"This improvement has accelerated dramatically in the first three weeks of June during which time we have achieved a modestly positive year-over-year comparison, as orders have returned to more normalized levels,” it added.