I’m heavily involved in project management, especially online; in fact, I received a season’s greeting card from an online project management software company just today. So it comes as no surprise my interest in investing in project management firms, but is there any, or are, like law firms stocks, merely a myth?

First let us examine project management and its current status, to see if it’s worth investing. Project management is a formal (defined) process for managing projects, these projects can range from construction to software, and they can vary in size from a few thousand dollars to several billions, and can take anything from a week to a decade to be done. More and more mega-projects are being undertaken, all over the world, especially in the Middle East and South East Asia, which is creating more demand on project management, and thus specialized project management consultancy companies. The future of project management is definitely bright. But is it bright enough for investors?

Let’s examine FLR, the stock ticker of Fluor, a construction project management company (of which I happen to know personally one of the senior executives). Take a look at this 6 months chart:

The stock, as you can see from the above, jumped 55% in the span of 6 months, not bad! Not only that, this is a decent stock, this is a company undertaking mega projects all over the world (hence hedging against recession risks). Although Fluor is trading just $3 short of its peak and at 30 P/E at the price of $65.09, I still believe that this stock has room to move upwards. $80 by the end of 2011 is not impossible for this stock, construction picks up after a recession, and not only that, construction is booming in developing countries (where real estate prices are skyrocketing).

In my opinion, FLR is one of the most stable and fruitful long term investment. And you thought fluor only existed in toothpastes…