I have not had a chance to do a write up on Flowserve's (FLS) earnings yet, but Fluor (FLR) in engineering / construction and Flowserve in water services are 2 dominant machines. (Feb 26, 2009: Fluor and Flowserve Continue Best of Breed Ways) Fluor is trading at 14x this year's estimate but at this point 2010 is looking to be less profitable than 2009; we shall see how it plays out. Fluor reported last night - a slight beat on the bottom line and inline on the top line. Inline on guidance - as always the key with these E&C names is backlog; things seem to be holding up well there too.

• New project awards for the quarter amounted to $6.8 billion, compared to $6.4 billion last year.

Full report here.

The stock is down today but it has been performing better than most of the peer group the past few months. I take it more as a 'sell the news' reaction.



If you are a full blown bull you should be buying these names hand over fist as energy prices skyrocket along with the global economy, and we pretend this credit implosion was just a nightmare that never really happened. I still am wary - funny thing we see today that China imported 18% more oil in July than June - yet oil prices didn't skyrocket in July (as they would of a year ago on similar news).... even with the dollar crumbling most of the month of July. Is it just happenstance that this "non reaction" in oil prices happened at the same time regulators finally are focusing on financial speculators' impact on the energy futures markets? Nah... just happenstance I am sure ;)

Long story short I am not exactly clear what the "clean" price of oil is anymore since Goldman, Morgan, JP, Citi and the boys have had their hands all over the market the past few years ... ahem, providing "liquidity" of course. Figuring out how markets work with some form of real regulation is a whole new ball game we need to adjust to. Fluor has more than half its business in "energy" and while most of the projects are very long term in nature you can see the CEO's comments below in regards to what his customers are saying.