Fluor participates in two hot industry segments, oil and gas, and the clean energy sector. On Monday the IBD Relative Strength (RS) Rating for Fluor stock climbed from 79 to 82, passing a milestone along the way.
On Feb. 16 Fluor stock rose to an intraday high 43.24 amid recent strong contract growth, a six-year high. Then on March 7 the Irving, Texas-based company announced the Dept. of Energy awarded a contact valued at more than $45 billion to a joint venture to clean up a former plutonium production site at Hanford, Washington.
The joint venture group consists of Fluor, a subsidiary of power generation company BWX Technologies and engineering services company Amentum.
Fluor Stock Tops Significant Milestone
The upgraded 82 RS Rating shows that Fluor stock is among the top 18% of stocks for price increase over the past year. Market research shows that the best-performing stocks often have an RS Rating above 80 as they launch their biggest price moves.
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Fluor stock broke out of a cup-with-handle base in early August. It rose from there in stairstep fashion to a 43.24 high on Feb. 16, the highest point since mid-November 2018.
Its Feb. 20 earnings report disappointed the Street and it dropped to a 35.04 low on Feb. 23. But you can't keep a good stock down. From there it's climbed in a hockey-stick fashion and closed at 40.74 Monday afternoon, down fractionally for the day. Despite the fast rise it hasn't formed a clear chart pattern. See if it's able to form and break out of a proper chart pattern with a buy point
Fluor provides construction and maintenance services to the oil and gas industries, as well as to petrochemical, mining, transportation and other industries.
Fluor reported 58% earnings growth in its most recent report, to 68 cents per share. Although still strong, that was down from EPS gains of 75%, 407% and 999%-plus the prior three stanzas. Likewise, sales grew 3% to $3.82 billion last quarter, but that was below prior gains of 20%, 19% and 10%.
Ready To Climb Again?
The Street expects the company to return to growth mode in the current quarter. Consensus of analysts polled by FactSet is for EPS to grow 90% year over year to 53 cents on a 7% gain in revenue to $4.01 billion. If so, that could give a lift to Fluor stock.
Among its other key ratings Fluor stock has an 89 Composite Rating out of 99. Its Earnings Per Share Rating is a decent 79 and it has a B SMR Rating (sales + profit margins + return on equity) on an A-to-E scale with A the best. Its C+ Accumulation/Distribution Rating shows big funds are buying slightly more of its stock than selling.
Meanwhile, Fluor stock holds the No. 11 rank among its peers in the 19-stock Building-Heavy Construction industry group. Granite Construction, Quanta Services and Aecom are among the top 5 highly rated stocks in the group. The group itself has a lofty No. 23 rank among IBD's 197 industry groups.
Please follow James DeTar on X, formerly known as Twitter, @JimDeTar
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