RTX and Lockheed Earnings: Can Strong Guidance Reset the Defense Trade?

Summary

The war trade has resumed in July, and earnings from two of the U.S.’s most prominent defense contractors are leading the tape. After weak Q1 reports and a tenuous Iran ceasefire, aerospace and defense stocks deepened their drawdowns as the market repriced the re-stock trade and institutional selling intensified. But now that the war is back on and Q2 reports from defense companies are rolling in, the repricing is being repriced. Does the defense trade have staying power this time? What RTX and Lockheed Martin Earnings Tell Us About the Defense Trade’s Path ForwardLockheed Martin Inc. NYSE: LMT and RTX Inc. NYSE: RTX are two of the largest U.S. defense contractors, and both their stocks soared at the start of the year. But the outbreak of the Iran war in late February actually marked the top of the defense trade, and shares of both companies declined 25% and 19% peak to trough, respectively, after making all-time highs in Q1. Poor Q1 earnings from Lockheed drove the deeper decline, while higher commodity prices also weighed on RTX’s commercial order book. The Q2 reports flipped the script, with both companies beating earnings-per-share (EPS) and revenue estimates and adding to their record backlogs. And crucially, not a dollar of earnings or backlog space has factored in the resumption of hostilities in Iran. One crucial caveat to the thesis: the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) has not yet been enacted following a failed cloture vote in the Senate. The debate is likely just noise and posturing between the Trump administration and Congress. Still, if the NDAA isn’t signed by October 1, no multiyear contracts for defense procurement can be distributed, and these contracts are the backbone of the RTX and LMT backlogs. RTX: Clean Earnings Beat Has Stock Primed for New HighsThe drawdown in RTX shares is officially over following its Q2 2026 results. The beat was highlighted by 14.5% year-over-year (YOY) revenue growth, which topped analysts’ estimates by m...