Of the laggards, KBR has the issue of a large Iraq exposure so any thoughts of a wind down of the war there could be seen as a threat to earnings potential.

The last two holdouts of this group that I held were Foster Wheeler (FWLT) and Fluor (FLR) and based on these metrics I still like those two most although KBR is compelling. McDermott (MDR) has had a lot of execution problems the past year, and Chicago Bridge & Iron (CBI) is a story unto itself. Shaw and Chicago Bridge are the only two without meaningful net cash (Shaw is actually net negative). (I used Yahoo Finance to pull the statistics so don't get all SEC filings detail oriented on me - this is simply a back of envelope exercize)

(click to enlarge)

So these are fun pictures to look at and an excuse for me to break out my Microsoft Excel for the first time in a long time. But since this is a legalized gambling hall (hey yo! It's 3 PM in 8 hours - you ready to "invest" for an hour??) and company fundmanetals mean nothing, that is all this is - an exercise in futility. When the market is up - they all go up, as they are all one company in the market's eyes - and vice versa. Looking any deeper than that, is simply a waste of our time in the casino.