Curtiss-Wright is not cheap at $511 despite falling about 30% since early August, and leadership is in flux. The CFO is stepping down on top of a CEO change on January 1. It remains a 5x stock over ten years, and it is mainly a defense company with a commercial aerospace side business, not the reverse, at a time when defense stocks are struggling. The key question is whether aerospace has legs. x.com 

Applied Aerospace & Defense's record $1.13B backlog and sole-supplier role on 87% of its business make it much stronger than its chart looks. Q2 adjusted EBITDA rose 38.5%, and customers include SpaceX and Anduril. Jefferies named it one of its top small/mid-cap cyclical ideas with a Buy rating and $20 target, more than 80% above Wednesday's close. The falling-wedge trigger is $11.54. x.com 

GE Aerospace's premium valuation looks hard to justify as margin expansion slips to 2028. Services are guided to low-double-digit growth with flat margins in 2027, while faster-growing original equipment could keep overall margins flat. Roughly 10-12% revenue growth would imply about $1.2-1.3B operating profit growth, down from about $1.9B in 2026, against a 35-38x multiple. Q3 departures rose only 1%, with prolonged Brent above $100 a further near-term risk. x.com 

Howmet Aerospace is an obvious short because its valuation is insane for a cyclical industrial. Its oligopoly in turbine blades, where only three companies can produce at scale, is already well known and priced in at about 100x free cash flow. Even a bull case implies only a 2.7% free cash flow yield on 2030 numbers, far less attractive than Microsoft, Meta, Nvidia or Salesforce. x.com  x.com 

Lockheed Martin looks pretty cheap at about 16.5x 2027 earnings for a business with effectively infinite duration. x.com  x.com 

Applied Aerospace & Defense offers exposure to growing defense, space and precision-strike spending through a business still very early in its public-market story. x.com 

BWX Technologies combines established naval nuclear demand with growth from commercial nuclear and microreactors, making it one of the most obvious buys today. Nuclear components and fuel for US submarines and aircraft carriers carry the business, with real contracts, profits, growing revenue and little reliance on speculative announcements. Guidance is up and backlog has grown, which looks better at a lower price. The premium valuation is worth paying as the next wave of nuclear demand builds. … Show more

Lockheed Martin looks like a really great opportunity in defense, with orders outpacing deliveries at a reasonable valuation. Its backlog is a record $230B, almost 3x expected 2026 revenue, after $65B of new Q2 orders. Q2 sales grew 11% to $20.1B, and management raised free cash flow guidance to over $7B for 2026. It trades at about 18-19x 2026 earnings, reasonable for a sector leader; the next few weeks are about finding an entry point. x.com 

GE Aerospace earns most of its money servicing a huge installed engine base, and record air traffic keeps that base turning. Engines sell at up to 70% off, while shop visits bring up to 70% of lifetime revenue; services were about 70% of 2025's $42B revenue, with a $210B backlog. At 43x earnings versus a 37x five-year average it is not cheap, a premium backed by the end of the conglomerate discount, margins and visibility. A correction would come only with a normal general market pullback. x.com  … Show more

Northrop Grumman shows a bullish disconnect: the stock is pricing in supply chain issues and lagging near its lows, while sales are surging and the government is ready to spend $1.5 trillion on new arms. x.com