Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.
What: Shares of engineering and construction company Chicago Bridge & Iron Company N.V. (CBI) jumped as much as 16% today after reporting earnings. The company is a major holding of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway and when you see the company's valuation you may see why.
So what: Fourth-quarter revenue rose 12.4% to $3.37 billion and net income fell 24% to $150.4 million, or $1.37 per share. The drop in net income was due to a tax benefit in the year ago quarter.
On an adjusted basis, which pulls out one-time items like the tax benefit, earnings were $1.47 per share, four cents ahead of estimates.
Now what: New awards for the year in the amount of $16.3 billion should ease some investors' fears that low oil prices would have a large adverse impact on earnings going forward. Management doesn't think low oil prices will have too much impact on projects this year, but did lower revenue guidance to $14.4 billion-$15.2 billion and earnings guidance to $5.55-$6.05 per share. But that was still at the top end of the $14.4 billion in revenue and $5.63 per share in earnings that Wall Street was expecting.
I think shares of Chicago Bridge & Iron have sold off far too much on fear that oil spending would subside, but there's still a lot of infrastructure to be built in energy and other industries. With shares trading at 8.4 times the bottom end of earnings, even after today's pop, I think there's still room for shares to move higher.
