Fluor Stock’s August Plunge: What Triggered the 25% Collapse?

Engineering giant Fluor got hammered—shares cratered 25% in August after disastrous Q2 earnings.

Where The Bleeding Started

Massive project write-downs slammed profitability. The company took a $100M hit on two energy contracts—classic execution failures haunting legacy industrials.

Leadership’s Spin Cycle

CEO Carlos Hernandez pointed to ‘energy market volatility’—because blaming external factors always plays better than admitting operational meltdowns. The board announced a restructuring plan immediately after, because nothing says confidence like emergency pivots during earnings calls.

Wall Street’s Brutal Takedown

Analysts downgraded the stock across the board. JPMorgan slashed its price target by 30%, citing ‘continued risk in fixed-price contracts’—finance-speak for ‘they signed terrible deals.’

Another reminder that traditional industrials remain trapped in cyclical quicksand while digital assets operate in real time—no waiting for quarterly reports to expose structural weaknesses.

A rough second quarter

Analysts were expecting Q2 revenue of around $4.7 billion and per-share earnings of $0.56. Instead, Fluor reported Q2 revenue of just $3.98 billion: a 15% miss, and a year-over-year decline of 5.9%. Adjusted per-share earnings were even worse, at $0.43: a 23% miss, down 49% (yikes!) from the year-ago quarter.

Even beyond the marquee numbers, the quarter was painful. The value of newly awarded contracts in Q2 was just $1.8 billion, down 43%. The company's backlog of projects also shrank 13% over the past year, from $32.3 billion to $28.2 billion.

Perhaps the only highlight of Fluor's Q2 earnings report was from its majority stake in nuclear start-up(SMR 4.66%). When Fluor reported earnings, NuScale's shares had skyrocketed more than 150% year to date. That represented $3.2 billion in pre-tax mark-to-market gains on Fluor's NuScale investment, which was included in its equity-method earnings calculation.

Image source: Getty Images.

An even rougher outlook

Adding insult to injury, Fluor also significantly reduced annual guidance. It had been calling for $575 million to $675 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) and $2.25 to $2.75 in earnings per share (EPS). Now it expects just $475 million to $525 million in EBITDA and $1.95 to $2.15 in EPS. The company cited "client hesitation around economic uncertainty" for the declines.

As bad as things are right now for Fluor, the company's long-term prospects look good, with a $28.2 billion project backlog that's 80% reimbursable, insulating it somewhat from clients who get cold feet. But investors should expect more near-term pain.