Market Notes and Links of Interest

The Dow closed below 13,000 points. When indexes are advancing, big numbers like 12,000 or 13,000 tend to create a sort of frothing-at-the-mouth confidence among investors. Is the opposite true when the direction is reversed?

Anytime would be a good time to buy into gold; today would be a great time.

Another sign of America's laziness?

The US Dollar: rock bottom is yet to come.

Intel has gone green.

Beware online trading sites. Even the biggies are susceptible to problems.

Google and Firefox: a marriage of technology.

Solar stocks run into a congressional problem.

It's Like Beating a Dead Horse

Pummeling the same company over and over gets boring and uninteresting after a while; but the news keeps on coming:

"A shareholder advisory group urged Beazer Homes's board Tuesday to fire Chief Executive Ian McCarthy because of financial, legal and accounting problems that the homebuilder has faced in recent months."

"Beazer has been beset by turmoil in the housing industry that has caused its number of home closings to plunge. Internal problems at the company have exacerbated the situation."

"On Monday, it said it expects to record pretax charges of $230 million in its fiscal fourth quarter."

"It also said it cut 650 jobs, or 25 percent of its work force, in October and is suspending its quarterly dividend to reduce costs."

"The homebuilder said it is unable to provide a full, audited report of its results for the quarter ended Sept. 30, but wanted to provide some preliminary data to investors."

"The company is currently in the midst of restating financial results for several prior-year periods."

"In the midst of restating financial results for several prior-year periods" is not a good sign. Here's a recap of the Beazer problems. Nothing else needs to be said.

The Beazer Blunders Continue

Despite the recent sparseness of posting, any Beazer Homes story deserves attention. This time, recent Beazer troubles has forced the suspension of dividends:

"Beazer Homes USA Inc...has suspended its quarterly dividend in an effort to firm up its capital position."

This follows the news that Beazer was receiving default notices, which followed the rumor that Beazer was contemplating bankruptcy, which followed the news that Beazer was firing the Chief Accounting Officer for attempting to destroy documents, which followed the news that Beazer was involved in an FBI probe.

You got all that??

To make matters worse, there's a recent report from Beazer's CFO in which he said that negative publicity was increasing cancellations:

"Beazer Homes USA Inc. Chief Financial Officer Allan Merrill on Tuesday estimated half of the company's cancellations in the latest quarter were driven by turmoil in the mortgage markets, while the other half were the result of rumors the company was facing bankruptcy."

Are you sure Allan? It couldn't be because of items like this:

"I'm a new Beazer homeowner and it has been quite an unpleasant experience. The current housing market is doing quite a number on the value of my home. However, Beazer is doing quite another. Beazer is not only assisting in the falling value of my home, but Beazer is having a fire sale within my housing development in order to raise cash. Beazer is a total disgrace to the American public who brought their product. As a customer I feel disrespected and ignored. I would never puchase another Beazer home."

Could it???