Why Did Tutor Perini Stock Drop Today?
Key Points
Tutor Perini beat on top and bottom lines, then gave better guidance than Wall Street expected.
Investors sold off the stock anyway.
Leading civil construction firm Tutor Perini (NYSE: TPC) stock slid 7.5% through 10:05 a.m. ET Friday morning despite beating analyst forecasts for both sales and earnings last night.
Heading into the company's Q4 report, analysts forecast Tutor Perini would earn only $0.62 per share on sales of $1.35 billion. In fact, Tutor earned $1.07 per share, and its sales surpassed $1.5 billion.
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Tutor Perini Q4 earnings
Tutor Perini's sales surged 41% year over year in Q4, and earnings flipped from a year-ago loss to a profit this time around. Profit per share wasn't really $1.07 -- that was a non-GAAP number. But Tutor still made tremendous improvement in reporting earnings calculated under generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) of $0.54 per share.
For the full year, Tutor grew its sales 28% to a new annual record of $5.5 billion. 2025 GAAP earnings were $1.51 per share for the year (again, versus a loss last year). Operating cash flow also set a new record for Turo, and free cash flow came in at $567.3 million, up 22% from $466.1 million a year ago.
Is Tutor Perini stock a sell?
So why is Tutor Perini stock down today? Honestly, I could not tell you.
Turning to guidance, Tutor Perini forecast it will earn between $4.90 and $5.30 per share (non-GAAP) in 2026. Taken at the midpoint, that represents 19% year-over-year growth from 2025. What's more, Tutor's entire earnings guidance range exceeds the $4.82 per share that Wall Street has been anticipating.
Although the stock looks a little expensive at 55x GAAP earnings today, Tutor stock trades for only 16.3 times pro forma profits -- and less than 7.7 times trailing free cash flow.
I think this stock is a buy.
Rich Smith has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.