Lennar Corp. gets litigious with Minkow as stock's slide persists

Lennar Corporation (NYSE: LEN) saw its shares plummet nearly 20% last Friday after Barry Minkow's Fraud Discovery Institute alleged that the homebuilder was improperly inflating its balance sheet, but the company isn't taking his inflammatory claims lying down. The beleaguered housing issue announced today that Minkow and his Fraud Discovery firm have been named as defendants in "a lawsuit alleging libel, extortion, and various criminal acts."

The official company statement reveals that Minkow & Co. are being added to a pre-existing lawsuit filed againt Nicolas Marsch III, who is accused of "hiring Minkow and his company to use any means available, including fraud, identity theft and manipulation of securities markets, to wrongfully and falsely harm Lennar's business and reputation because Lennar refuses to accede to Marsch's demands for tens of millions of dollars."

Unfortunately for Lennar, its dramatic rejection of Minkow's allegations isn't doing anything to boost its share price. The equity lost 8.8% today, easily outpacing the decline in the broader equities market. LEN has now shed roughly 31% since last Friday.

Meanwhile, in the options arena, put volume continues to dominate -- during the past 10 days, traders on the International Securities Exchange have bought to open 2.6 puts for every call. This ratio is hovering just 15 percentage points from an annual bearish peak.

Elizabeth Harrow is an analyst and financial writer in the research department at Schaeffer's Investment Research. She is featured in the video series Schaeffer's Daily Q&A on SchaeffersResearch.com.