Should you buy, hold or sell Lockheed Martin Stock Post Q4 gains?

Lockheed Martin Corp. LMT delivered mixed results in the fourth quarter of 2024. While its end result conveniently exceeded the Zacks Consensus estimate, the upper line missed the same. Unimuminted, in comparison to the year, both the sales and the profits of LMT reflect the deterioration.

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While the dark sales performance led to two of its four business segments to the decline in sales of the reported quarter, the higher sales costs and interest expenses had an impact on the final result. In 2024, the company ended as silver strips with cash and cash equivalents worth 2.48 billion US dollars compared to 1.44 billion US dollars at the end of 2023. Such an improved cash balance shows a healthy financial situation for LMT.

A prudent investor knows that a significant decision, such as the purchase of a share, should not depend solely on the individual quarterly performance of a company. In order to make a more informed decision, you should take into account the performance of the share last year with regard to the share return, your long -term prospects and the risks (if available) for investing in the same. We have given a detailed discussion about how to see below.

Lockheed’s shares rose by 6% last year and exceed the growth of the Zacks Aerospace Defense industry of 0.7%. However, the share has made the wider growth of the aerospace sector of 8.7% and the S&P 500 profit of 23% below average in the same period.

An outstanding performance was liked by other industry players like Embraer Erj, RTX Corp. RTX and Leidos Holdings LDOS that exceeded the industry, the sector and the S&P 500. In particular, the shares of these defense shares recorded an increase of 118.7%, 41.7%or. 26.8%.

LMTS one -year performance

Image source: Zacks Investment Research

Lockheed’s broad portfolio of various products – from Stealth Fighter Aircrafts and Littoral Combat Ships to rocket and space exploration functions – enables him to secure large defense contracts and increase the number of residues. Obviously, the company ended in 2024 with a record change of 176 billion US dollars, which reflected a solid increase compared to the level of the previous year of $ 160.6 billion. Such an improvement in the number of backlog reflects the strong demand that the progressive defense technology and systems of the LMT enjoy worldwide. This was reflected in the form of a solid share price increase last year.

In addition, LMT’s solid financial position enables its shareholders to make remarkable payments. In 2024, Lockheed paid its shareholders dividends worth 3.06 billion US dollars and bought 7.5 million shares worth 3.7 billion US dollars. Investors usually choose shares such as LMT that offer solid shareholders in the form of healthy dividend distributions and stock returns.

The growth prospects of the global defense industry are still robust due to increased geopolitical tensions, which leads to increased defense spending worldwide. As the largest US defense entrepreneur, Lockheed thus benefits from consistent contracting flows for its combat products from the Pentagon and the US allies, as can be seen from his solid backlog number, which implies strong prospects for generation generation. Remarkably, the company will recognize around 35% in the next 24 months as of December 31, 2024 of December 31, 2024 worth 176 billion US dollars in the next 12 months and 60%.

Such prospects for generation of sales also strengthen the company’s growth opportunities. In accordance with this, the consensus estimate for the long -term (three to five years) profit growth rate from LMT is set to solid 4.4%.

In addition, it is essential that Lockheed is a well -known manufacturer of advanced space technology systems that range from satellites to spaceships. Since the global space economy exceeds the value of 1 trillion US dollar over 2030 (according to a large number of analysts worldwide), the growth prospects of LMT remain immensely in this industry.

A short look at the short -term profits and sales estimates reflects a similar history of growth.

The Zacks Consensus estimate for sales and profits in the first quarter of 2025 indicates an improvement of 2.6% or 4.1% before the previous year. A similar growth process is also implied in the estimates of the 2025 year.

However, the lower estimate for the first quarter of 2025 and the year 2025 indicates a downward movement of 0.8% or 1.2% in the last 60 days. This indicates that the falling trust of the analysts into the stock a crazy trust.

Image source: Zacks Investment Research

Although Lockheed is a prominent defender, Lockheed faces a few remarkable challenges, and you should take them into account before adding this stock to your portfolio. In particular, the aerospace industry, including Lockheed, is against a continuing lack of specialist work that is tightened by an aging workforce. According to the Aerospace Industries Association, 29% of industry employees are over 55 years old, which leads to penert -oriented staff gaps, which are expected to reach 3.5 million by 2026. Since the aircraft manufacturers increase production according to the pandemic, this shortage of workers could have an impact on how Lockheed affect aviation and space reserves such as Lockheed, how Lockheed increases production. Potentially influence growth and operations in the middle of the increasing demand for advanced defense aircraft.

In addition, the Canadian Maritime helicopter program from Lockheed (“CMHP”), in which the development, development and production of CH-148 aircraft is involved, has recently been faced with performance problems, including delivery delays. The flight lessons of the Royal Canadian Air Force were significantly less than expected. This has influenced the program income and the restoration of Lockheed’s costs as part of this program. As of December 31, 2024, the company’s cumulative losses in relation to CMHP was around 100 million US dollars.

With regard to the assessment, the 12-month price of LMT is 16.38x, a premium for the average of its peer group of 16.18x. This indicates that investors will pay a higher price than the expected profit growth of the company compared to its colleagues.

Image source: Zacks Investment Research

Investors who are interested in Lockheed should wait for a better entry point, considering that the premium rating and the downward revision in its short-term yield estimate could be observed.

However, those who already have these Zacks rank 3 (hold) can invest as financial stability, the optimistic share price performance in the past year and offer solid growth prospects.

You can see The full list of today’s Zacks #1 rank (Strong Buy) protocols here.

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Should you buy, hold or sell Lockheed Martin Stock Post Q4 gains?

ByAmelia Journalton

By Amelia Journalton

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