Argan builds power plants, and America has run out of power. The result: revenue up 50% to $291 million last quarter, EPS nearly doubled, a backlog that jumped from $1.4 to $2.9 billion in one fiscal year — and a stock up roughly 90% year to date, over 1,000% in five years, with zero debt on the balance sheet.
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| YTD / 5-year | ~+90% / +1,000% |
| Q1 FY27 revenue | $291M (+50% YoY) |
| Diluted EPS | nearly 2x YoY |
| Backlog | $1.4B → $2.9B |
| 3-yr revenue CAGR | 27.6% |
| Debt | None |
Why it moved
The demand math is brutal and slow-moving in Argan's favor: US data-center electricity demand is forecast to nearly triple by 2030 while 104 gigawatts of aging plants retire by the same year. Someone has to engineer and build the replacement capacity, and Argan's backlog doubling across all three segments says utilities and developers are signing now. Construction backlog is the most honest forward indicator in industrials — it is contracted revenue, not sentiment.
What it means for you
The risks are the classic EPC trio: lumpy project timing, fixed-price cost overruns, and backlog concentration in a handful of large jobs. After a 90% run, a bad quarter on any of the three gets punished hard. But a debt-free builder with a doubled backlog in a decade-long power shortage is a structural story, not a meme.
Bottom line: AGX has graduated from hidden gem to momentum name — I would not initiate after a vertical move, but I would buy the first earnings-driven dip that leaves the backlog intact. The power gap is not getting fixed by 2027, and neither is Argan's demand.