LMT, Lockheed Martin Corp. and GD, General Dynamics

lmt dec 20 2016

Trump has promised to make the US armed forces both the best and the most efficient in the World. Lockheed is the maker of the F-35 and as such it is the recipient of the single most costly military order ever. There are 3 versions of this fighter, one for the army, one for the navy and one for the air force. They are to replace the F-16, someday. They are behind and over budget, do not perform as designed according to some and already some foreign purchasers have cancelled orders (Australia). Others, like the British are concerned that their new class of aircraft carriers (the Queen E class), which do not have catapults, may have to be redesigned or retrofitted. Even with an expected production run of about 4,500 these toys will still cost north of $160 mln. a piece.

The chart is hard to read as there are no distinct or obvious sub-patterns that are readily recognisable. Nevertheless our gut tells us that we are probable at the end of a 5-wave sequence. The fundamentals also suggest that we are overdone to the upside for quite some time now;

LMT dec 20 2016 Morningstar

LMT is clearly outperforming both the Aerospace & Defense stocks as well as the S&P, both by a very large margin! But there is really nothing in this company’s key financial ratios to warrant this outperformance.  So we will have a look at that other fighter manufacturer, General Dynamics (builder of the F-16) to see if it confirms that the stock might be ahead of itself;

gd dec 20 2016

Fortunately this one presents a much more readable picture; the only ambiguity might be where the 4th wave ended, that is if there was a triangle or not. Probable there wasn’t one. In any event both LMT and GD should be exited or even sold short in our opinion.

LMT, Lockheed Martin Corp.

f 35lmt dec 17 2012

They are planning to make at least 2400 of these “hybrid” fighter jets that now are budgeted to cost close to $200 mln. a piece. So far about $65 bln. has been spent on the development of this plane (2x LMT’s capitalization) and things are not going smoothly for this most costliest defense programme ever. Given this fundamental backdrop and prospects of the negative-feedback loop continuing for some time yet, it is amazing that the stock is still trading at such lofty levels.

The count is not entirely clear but plain enough to assume that the drop in 2008 was wave A, the rebound of about 62% thereafter wave B, so now we should expect wave C down to start any time now. In detail;

lmt dec 17 2012 s

A nice wedge for the C part of the A-B-C rebound. The count could be wrong in so far that we may only be completing wave 3 of C rather than the whole thing. Unlikely considering the RSI and MACD. A sell or use a stop at about $86.