Why Chicago Bridge & Iron Company Stock Just Crashed 32%

Shares of engineering and construction powerhouse Chicago Bridge & Iron (NYSE: CBI) are down 32.5% as of 12:05 p.m. EDT in response to yesterday's after-hours earnings report.

Chicago Bridge reported a huge drop in second-quarter revenue last night. Whereas the company took in $2.2 billion in revenue in last year's Q2, Q2 2017 produced sales of just $1.3 billion. That was significantly below the $2.44 billion in sales that Wall Street was expecting -- an enormous miss.

And the news got worse. Instead of earning Wall Street's expected $0.85 per share, Chicago Bridge reported a GAAP loss of $3.02 per share. Given that even $0.85 would have been down significantly from last year's Q2 profit of $1.09 per share, perhaps Wall Street had thought it was being conservative in predicting its steep decline in profits. Turns out, analysts weren't nearly conservative enough.

Source: Fool.com