By Al Root

Fluor builds American infrastructure and its stock has boomed over the past year as activity has picked up. Weaker-that-expected first-quarter earnings, however, unnerved investors Friday.

The engineering and construction company reported adjusted earnings per share of 14 cents from sales of almost $3.7 billion. Wall Street was looking for earnings per share of 52 cents from sales of $9.2 billion, according to FactSet.

A year ago, Fluor reported adjusted earnings per share of 73 cents from sales of $4 billion.

Along with the earnings miss, Fluor reduced guidance for 2026. Management now expects earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, or Ebitda, between $525 million and $56o million. The prior range was $525 million to $585 million.

"This revision to the upper end of our guidance reflects Q1 recognition of cost growth on a mining project in the Americas, and a temporary slowdown on another project due to Middle East geopolitical concerns," said the company in its news release.

Fluor stock was down 5.3% in premarket trading at $48.36, while S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were up 0.4% and 0.3%, respectively.

Backlog at the end of the quarter was $25.7 billion, up slightly from year-end 2025. New awards in the quarter were $2.7 billion, down 54% year over year, but almost all of the new awards were "reimbursable," or essentially cost-plus contracts (which is higher quality backlog for investors),

Fluor also reported the sale of its stake in small module nuclear reactor company NuScale, "generating $2.4 billion in proceeds since September 2025."

Investors should expect the stock to be weak on Friday. Coming into the day, Fluor shares had risen 29% this year and have gained 43% over the past 12 months.

Gains have been fueled partly by the company's participation in building AI data centers, nuclear power, and critical minerals projects.

Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 08, 2026 07:13 ET (11:13 GMT)

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