As uncertainty looms over Greece’s spiraling debt crisis, the market sell-off can well be understood. Defense stocks, which have been oscillating between greens and reds for the past few weeks, were no exception.
Yet, there were the usual contract wins – the bread and butter of the sector – and a number of important news making it to the headlines. The Boeing Co.’s BA Chief Executive Officer (“CEO”) Jim McNerney is stepping down and elected in his place is Dennis A. Muilenburg. Pentagon’s prime contractor, Lockheed Martin Corp. LMT won a series of contracts from the Department of Defense (DoD) funding list.
As for the latest in space news, Elon Musk’s SpaceX Falcon 9 suffered its first mission failure thereby putting a mark on its ambitions plans to crack into the military market.
(Read Defense Stock Roundup for Jun 23, 2015 here.)
Recap of the Week’s Most Important Stories
1. Boeing CEO Jim McNerney is stepping down from the controls after 10 years. The aircraft manufacturer announced last week that its board of directors has elected Dennis A. Muilenburg as its new CEO. Muilenburg who previously served as the company’s president and chief operating officer since 2013 will succeed W. James (“Jim”) McNerney, Jr. as the 10th CEO of the company on Jul 1 (read more: Boeing Gets a New CEO in Muilenburg; Business Focus Intact).
2. Lockheed Martin continues to secure defense contracts at regular intervals. Last week, the prime defense contractor was able to nab a big ticket program, worth $480 million, to continue to assess and enhance the capabilities of the U.S. Air Force’s C-130J aircraft (read more: Lockheed Martin Wins Twin Defense Contracts Worth $498M).
Again, its Aeronautics unit clinched a contract from the DoD for delivery of initial spares in support of low-rate initial production Lot 9 F-35 Lightning II aircraft for the Air Force, Navy, non-U.S. DoD participants and foreign military sales customers. The contract has a ceiling value of $237.8 million (read more: Lockheed Martin Secures 3 Contracts from DoD Funding List).
The company’s Aeronautics business won a $119.2 million cost-plus-fixed-fee, undefinitized contract action for contractor logistics support. Per the contract, Lockheed Martin will provide contractor logistics support or CLS for the Iraq F-16 program.
3. General Dynamics Corp. GD secured a contract from the U.S. Army for the production of additional Warfighter Information Network – Tactical (WIN-T) Increment 2 systems. WIN-T Increment 2 is the base of the U.S. Army’s communications system as it is capable of providing risk-free Communications on the Move, mission command and conditional awareness to army personnel (read more: General Dynamics Wins $219M WIN-T Increment Army Contract).
4. Elon Musk’s SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket exploded minutes after it was launched on Jun 28. The failure of yet another SpaceX resupply mission to the International Space Station will have important implications for the company which was aiming to crack into the military market.
Earlier this month, the Falcon 9 rocket won the U.S. Air Force certification for the nation's most critical launch missions. The certification allowed the company to directly compete for Pentagon satellite launches against United Launch Alliance or ULA, a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, breaking the monopoly the two have had since 2006.
Performance
The last five trading days have been a dampener for the defense sector. The major companies in the sector ended in the red with Boeing losing the most, followed by Raytheon Co. RTN.
Even the six-month picture is alarming as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. LLL have failed to end in the green. Others have registered feeble gains over this period.
The following table shows the price movement of the major defense players over the past five trading days and during the last six months.
|
Company |
Last Week |
Last 6 months |
|
LMT |
-3.19% |
-3.72% |
|
BA |
-3.95% |
6.19% |
|
GD |
-2.43% |
1.81% |
|
RTN |
-3.76% |
-11.33% |
|
NOC |
-3.46% |
6.00% |
|
COL |
-3.02% |
8.77% |
|
TXT |
-3.28% |
3.44% |
|
LLL |
-2.94% |
-10.40% |
What’s Next in the Defense World?
In the next five days, no major developments are expected on the defense front. We note that defense stocks have been experiencing volatility with gains and losses in recent sessions and investors can expect this volatile movement to continue in the coming days as well.
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