BEAZER HOMES USA: The Atlanta home builder posted a fourth-quarter profit despite a plunge in revenue, thanks to a large gain on the prepayment of debt.

Net income for the period ended Sept. 30 totaled $33.8 million, or 84 cents per share. That compares with a loss of $473.9 million, or $12.29 per share, a year earlier.

Revenue fell 42 percent to $376.3 million. Analysts expected a loss of $1.24 per share on revenue of $338.3 million.

New home orders rose 2.4 percent from a year earlier.

TYCO INTERNATIONAL: The world's largest maker of security systems through its ADT unit forecast fiscal first-quarter profit that trailed analysts' estimates and said it expects sales from existing units to decline next year.

Fiscal fourth-quarter net income declined to $205 million, or 43 cents a share, from $434 million, or 91 cents, a year earlier, Schaffhausen, Switzerland-based Tyco said. Profit excluding some items was 61 cents a share, topping the 54-cent estimate of 12 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Sales for the quarter ended Sept. 25 dropped 16 percent to $4.42 billion, topping the $4.33 billion expected by analysts in the survey.

POINT BLANK SOLUTIONS: The Pompano Beach body armor company reported a narrower loss and lower sales for its third quarter, which ended Sept. 30.

The loss was $3.8 million, or eight cents per share compared to a loss of $5.8 million, or 12 cents per share in the same period of 2008. Revenue fell 34 percent to $19.9 million because of delays in the government awarding contracts, the company said in a press release.

VECTOR GROUP: The Miami tobacco company reported higher revenue and profit for its third quarter, which ended Sept. 30. Net income was $16.2 million, or 22 cents per share, compared with $14.8 million, or 20 cents per share, in the 2008 third quarter.

Revenue grew 62 percent to $236.7 million.

BRITISH BANKS: Britain's two biggest banks, HSBC Holdings and Barclays, reported strong investment banking profits and signaled that bad debts may be nearing their peak, raising hopes the worst of the financial crisis is over for them.

Barclays' underlying pretax profit -- stripping out bad debt provisions and other one-off factors -- more than doubled over the same period to 4.4 billion pounds.

While HSBC's statement lacked details figures, it said that pretax profit for the third quarter was ``significantly ahead'' of the same period last year and that losses on U.S. consumer loans had shrunk for the first time in three years.

VODAFONE GROUP: The world's largest mobile-phone company posted a 2.9 percent rise in first-half operating profit and said it plans to cut costs by an additional one billion pounds ($1.66 billion).

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or Ebitda, in the six months ended Sept. 30 rose to 7.46 billion pounds, matching the average of analysts' estimates, from 7.24 billion pounds a year earlier. The Newbury, England-based company's stock fell 1.5 percent as European operations fared worse than analysts predicted.

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