KB Home Shares Plunged: What You Need to Know

Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.

What: Shares of homebuilder KB Home (NYS: KBH) sank 11% Friday after its quarterly results disappointed Wall Street.

So what: While KB managed to cut its first-quarter loss by a whopping 60%, an 8% decrease in new orders is triggering fresh concerns about critical spring home sales. The stock has rallied over the past few months on signs of a U.S. housing recovery, but KB's results suggest things aren't as encouraging as investors had thought.

Now what: Looking ahead, management fully expects to return to profitability in 2012. "The strategic actions we implemented toward the end of last year, and plan to continue to emphasize this year, should have a more pronounced impact as the year unfolds," said CEO Jeffrey Mezger. However, with the stock still up nearly 60% over the past three months, I'd wait for much more of a pullback before buying into the turnaround talk.

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At the time thisarticle was published Fool contributor Brian Pacampara owns no position in any of the companies mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days.We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Fool's disclosure policy always gets a perfect score.

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