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If earnings season had a fleet week, this would be it. A bevy of defense contractors began reporting quarterly results Tuesday, and Lockheed Martin, RTX, and GE Aerospace all beat Wall Street expectations for earnings per share.
RTX, which was known as Raytheon until mid-2023, also beat analyst forecasts for revenue, while Lockheed and GE Aerospace missed revenue expectations. Lockheed’s bottom line suffered as it negotiated with the US government over F-35s to be delivered in 2026 and 2027. While they haggle, Lockheed isn’t getting reimbursed for orders of parts it uses in its planes, according to Reuters—and that’s eaten into both sales and profit.
Meanwhile, Reuters also reported that GE’s filing shows slowing sales growth for both military and commercial businesses, according to Robert Stallard, analyst with Vertical Research Partners. A strike by machinists at Boeing, which buys GE-made jet engines, “has not had a ‘significant’ impact thus far on its revenue, earnings and cash flows,” according to Reuters.
RTX’s financial results were clouded ahead of time by news on Oct. 16 that it would “pay more than $950 million to resolve allegations that it defrauded the government and paid bribes to secure business with Qatar,” ABC News reported.
Wars in Ukraine and the Middle East have been good for the companies that make the planes, bombs, guns, and other hardware used in those places, according to US News. Lockheed and RTX stock prices hit all-time highs this week, Investor’s Business Daily reported.
Looking ahead. General Dynamics reports on Wednesday, while Honeywell and Northrop Grumman will report Thursday.