Earnings Power Movers in Aerospace and Defense

• By the tickerspy.com Staff
• On 12:56 pm EST, Tuesday November 10, 2009

The aerospace and defense sector has been shaken up a bit recently, but prudent stock pickers have collected sizable one-month gains.

Over the last month, some aerospace and defense stocks have swung by double-digits, leaving gains to be had by only those able to hone in on the winners. On a daily basis, the sector's mixed-performance trend is similar. Those who bet on Force Protection (NASDAQ: FRPT - News) ahead of its third-quarter results are winning big today, while Hexcel (NYSE: HXL - News) and Astronics (NASDAQ: ATRO - News) slip by -5% and -3% respectively.

As a whole, the Aerospace and Defense Stocks Index is down by -1.2% today. It is currently trailing the S&P 500 by more than -400 basis points over the last month.

Once penny-stock Force Protection remains a long way from its 2007 highs above the $30 mark, but yesterday's post-market earnings report is helping the stock rebound from recent lows. The armored vehicle company brought in adjusted EPS of 23 cents a share on $316.2 million in revenue, crushing analysts' expectations for both. The stock remains a laggard over the last month, but it leads the sector over the last week with a 22% leap in five sessions.

Imagery products company GeoEye (NASDAQ: GEOY - News) is also trading higher on a significant volume spike after reporting its third-quarter results. The company earned $12.5 million or 61 cents a share on $79.9 million of revenue. The U.S. government represented 67% of sales for the period. President and CEO Matt O'Connell said, "we believe we have strong visibility into the fourth quarter of 2009." He offered full year revenue guidance of between $275 and $280 million and adjusted EPS in the range of $1.30 and $1.45.

The sector's large-caps are slipping with the market today. General Electric (NYSE: GE - News), United Technologies (NYSE: UTX - News), and Boeing (NYSE: BA - News) all have interests in the aerospace and defense sector.

Elsewhere in the sector, Oshkosh (NYSE: OSK - News), Textron (NYSE: TXT - News), and Mercury Computer Systems (NASDAQ: MRCY - News) have all multiplied numerous times since hitting 52-week lows in late-2008 and early-2009.

As of this writing, the Aerospace and Defense Stocks Index is one of the 50 cheapest tickerspy Indexes by P/E ratio with an average multiple of 16.6%.

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