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What this page is: Delvantic's full research page for L3Harris Technologies, Inc. (LHX) — AI-driven forensic equity research: mechanical valuation models (DCF, EPV, anchored-PE, scenario) plus three independent AI lenses (Quality / Value / Sentiment). Everything below is rendered server-side; you are not missing content that requires JavaScript. All scores are predictions and research opinions, not financial advice.
Our current read (analysis of 2026-08-23): Designation Low · Gem Score -29 (−100…+100 Quality+Value blend) · Quality 22 · Value -71 · Sentiment 47 (timing only, not weighted) · Composite fair value $154.81 vs $291.82 at analysis
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profile-header/price-overview— company profile, live quote, market capextended-analysis— the core: three AI lens reads with findings, scores, and the analyst memofuture-predictions— our forward price-band predictionsmarket-narrative/ai-findings/gpt-critique— narrative context, cross-model findings, and an adversarial critique of our own analysis (near the end of the document)- Members-only sections (render as login gates for anonymous readers):
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L3Harris Technologies, Inc.
LHX NYSEL3Harris Technologies, Inc. is a public aerospace and defense technology company that delivers mission-critical solutions to government and commercial customers worldwide. Headquartered in Melbourne, Florida, it focuses on advanced electronics, communications, sensing, and integrated systems that operate across space, air, land, sea, and cyber domains. The company’s offerings include tactical communications systems, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, avionics and electronic warfare systems, night vision equipment, mission networks, and missile and space propulsion technologies. L3Harris is structured around major business segments such as Space & Mission Systems, Communications & Spectrum Dominance, and Missile Solutions, which together provide end-to-end engineering, manufacturing, integration, and sustainment services tied to defense and national security programs. Serving U.S. and allied defense, intelligence, and space markets, L3Harris plays a significant role as a technology partner to government departments and international customers, supporting applications ranging from battlefield communications and missile defense to space payloads and civil government mission systems.
Price Overview
Price History (1 Year)
Revenue & Net Income Trend
| Period | Revenue | Net Income | Net Margin | YoY/QoQ |
|---|
Key Metrics
EPS (Diluted): 8.53
Total Equity: $19.64B
Shares: 188,400,000
Total Debt: $10.44B
Cash: $1.07B
EBITDA: $3.33B
Total Debt: $10.44B
Cash: $1.07B
Revenue: N/A
Revenue: N/A
Revenue: N/A
Total Equity: $19.64B
Tax Rate: 16.9%
Equity: $19.64B
Total Debt: $10.44B
Cash: $1.07B
Current Liabilities: $7.23B
Long-Term Debt: $10.44B
Total Debt: $10.44B
Total Equity: $19.64B
Shares: 188,400,000
Shares: 188,400,000
CapEx: -$424.00M
Shares: 188,400,000
Stock Price: $291.82
Net Income: $1.61B
Industry Benchmarks
Income Statement (Annual)
Last updated: Aug 16, 2026 12:24am (7d ago)| Metric | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2025 | 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $17.8B | $17.1B | $19.4B | $21.3B | — |
| Cost of Revenue | $12.4B | $12.1B | $14.3B | $15.8B | — |
| Gross Profit | $5.4B | $4.9B | $5.1B | $5.5B | — |
| Operating Expenses | $2.0B | $3.1B | $3.7B | $3.6B | $3.4B |
| Operating Income | $3.3B | $1.8B | $1.4B | $1.9B | $2.1B |
| Net Income | $1.8B | $1.1B | $1.2B | $1.5B | $1.6B |
| EBITDA | $4.3B | $2.8B | $2.6B | $3.2B | $3.3B |
| EPS | $9.17 | $5.54 | $6.47 | $7.91 | $8.57 |
| EPS (Diluted) | $9.09 | $5.49 | $6.44 | $7.87 | $8.53 |
Balance Sheet (Annual)
Last updated: Aug 16, 2026 12:08am (7d ago)| Metric | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2025 | 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cash & Equivalents | $941.0M | $880.0M | $560.0M | $615.0M | $1.1B |
| Total Current Assets | $6.4B | $6.8B | $8.1B | $8.2B | $8.6B |
| Total Assets | $34.7B | $33.5B | $41.7B | $42.0B | $41.2B |
| Current Liabilities | $4.6B | $5.8B | $8.0B | $7.6B | $7.2B |
| Long-Term Debt | $7.0B | $6.2B | $11.2B | $11.1B | $10.4B |
| Total Liabilities | $15.4B | $14.9B | $22.9B | $22.4B | $21.6B |
| Total Equity | $19.3B | $18.6B | $18.8B | $19.6B | $19.6B |
| Retained Earnings | $2.9B | $2.9B | $3.2B | $3.7B | $4.2B |
Cash Flow (Annual)
Last updated: Aug 16, 2026 12:24am (7d ago)| Metric | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2025 | 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Operating Cash Flow | $2.7B | $2.2B | $2.1B | $2.6B | $3.1B |
| Capital Expenditure | -$342.0M | -$252.0M | -$449.0M | -$408.0M | -$424.0M |
| Free Cash Flow | $2.3B | $1.9B | $1.6B | $2.2B | $2.7B |
| Acquisitions (net) | $0 | $0 | -$6.7B | $0 | $0 |
| Net Debt Issued / (Repaid) | -$7.0M | -$10.0M | — | — | — |
| Dividends Paid | -$817.0M | -$864.0M | -$868.0M | -$886.0M | -$903.0M |
| Stock Buybacks | -$3.7B | -$1.1B | -$518.0M | -$554.0M | -$1.2B |
| Net Change in Cash | -$335.0M | -$61.0M | -$320.0M | $55.0M | $454.0M |
Growth Trends (YoY %)
Last updated: Aug 16, 2026 12:24am (7d ago)| Metric | 2022 | 2023 | 2025 | 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue Growth | -4.2% | +13.8% | +9.8% | — |
| Gross Profit Growth | -8.4% | +3.8% | +8.0% | — |
| Operating Income Growth | -45.4% | -21.9% | +34.5% | +10.0% |
| Net Income Growth | -42.5% | +15.5% | +22.4% | +6.9% |
| EBITDA Growth | -35.9% | -6.2% | +23.7% | +4.0% |
Dividend History (Last 20)
Last updated: Aug 11, 2026 12:52pm (12d ago)| Date | Dividend | Declaration | Record | Payment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-06-05 | $1.25 | — | — | — |
| 2026-03-06 | $1.25 | — | — | — |
| 2025-11-17 | $1.20 | — | — | — |
| 2025-09-05 | $1.20 | — | — | — |
| 2025-06-03 | $1.20 | — | — | — |
| 2025-03-10 | $1.20 | — | — | — |
| 2024-11-18 | $1.16 | — | — | — |
| 2024-09-06 | $1.16 | — | — | — |
| 2024-06-04 | $1.16 | — | — | — |
| 2024-03-07 | $1.16 | — | — | — |
| 2023-11-16 | $1.14 | — | — | — |
| 2023-09-01 | $1.14 | — | — | — |
| 2023-06-01 | $1.14 | — | — | — |
| 2023-03-09 | $1.14 | — | — | — |
| 2022-11-17 | $1.12 | — | — | — |
| 2022-09-01 | $1.12 | — | — | — |
| 2022-06-02 | $1.12 | — | — | — |
| 2022-03-10 | $1.12 | — | — | — |
| 2021-11-18 | $1.02 | — | — | — |
| 2021-09-02 | $1.02 | — | — | — |
Deep Analysis
Narrative Economics
market-narrative step).
AI Lens 4th lens · how AI reaches this business · 5-yr
2026-08-16AI-enabled warfighting is sensor-, datalink- and effector-hungry: autonomy without resilient RF, EW, ISR payloads and propulsion is inert, and LHX sells those qualified, ITAR-bound, production-scaled physical layers. Cheap autonomy raises the volume of platforms needing radios, seekers and motors.
AI-native entrants (software-first primes) are winning the autonomy/mission-software layer that is where program margin is migrating, while DoD open-architecture mandates commoditize LHX's proprietary mission software and box-level integration. Separately, on cost-type and negotiated-price work, AI-driven engineering productivity is recaptured by the customer in the next rate negotiation rather than kept as margin.
Whether LHX's role in AI-era programs is the priced-hardware supplier to someone else's autonomy stack or the integrator of it — observable in whether it is prime versus subcontractor on Golden Dome/CJADC2-class awards and in whether Aerojet and tactical comms book-to-bill outruns segment margin decay.
Solid rocket motor and munitions production capacity, cleared facilities and classified program pedigree, waveform/crypto certifications (NSA Type 1), qualified night-vision and space optics manufacturing, and installed-base radio fleets across allied militaries.
AI Lens thesis
AI reaches L3Harris mainly through the composition of demand and the location of program margin, not through substitution of its product. The underlying need — sensing, secure communication, jamming, propulsion for US and allied forces — is untouched by cheap intelligence and arguably amplified by it, because autonomous systems multiply the count of nodes needing hardened links and motors. What AI does erode is the differentiation of the software and systems-engineering hours that historically carried LHX content: model-assisted development lets software-first entrants field mission autonomy in months, and DoD's open, modular architecture push turns LHX subsystems into interchangeable payloads inside someone else's kill chain. Offsetting that, AI cuts LHX's own engineering, test and sustainment cost — but on cost-plus and repeatedly-negotiated fixed-price work, savings pass through to the government unless captured on fixed-price production and internal overhead. Net: exposure is real but mid-band, with hardware scarcity providing the floor and software displacement providing the ceiling.
What the market may be underestimating
Upside Propulsion is the AI era's physical bottleneck: every autonomous strike concept still ends in a motor, and LHX owns one of two US solid rocket motor franchises — cheap autonomy raises munition consumption rates, a demand channel unrelated to software competition.
Downside Roughly half of LHX's value-add is billable engineering and systems integration hours; if AI collapses the labor content of that work on cost-type contracts, revenue falls before cost does, compressing an already 26% gross margin structure with no pricing offset.
Outcome range spread 41
Growth Outlook
Analyzed 2026-08-17 16:15The question every valuation on this page silently assumes: is this company likely to grow? Judged forward — the business, its category, the world — against what's already printed.
Claude Reading
Looking at the raw quarterly tape first: revenue has walked from $5.29B (Sep-24) to $5.88B (Jul-26), roughly 11% over seven quarters, or ~6% annualized — decent for a defense prime but nowhere near what a 34x P/E demands. More interesting is the margin trajectory: net margin has climbed from 7.6% to 10.2% over the same window, and the last two prints (8.9% and 10.2%) mark a genuine step-up. TTM net income annualizes to roughly $1.87B against a $54.3B cap, so trailing P/E on the freshest quarters is closer to ~29x, not 34x. FCF of $2.68B on a $54.3B cap is a 4.9% FCF yield — thin for a mature earner but not absurd if you believe margins hold at the new level. ROIC of 6.05% against a WACC north of 8% is the real tell: this company is not creating incremental value at current invested capital, which is very hard to square with a platform-monopoly multiple.
I largely agree with the synthesis verdict that the stock is overvalued, but I think the $163 fair value is too punitive and the models are talking past each other. The DCF anchor assumes stable low-growth cash flows and ignores the margin inflection visible in the last two quarters — if 10%+ net margin is the new normal (not a one-quarter fluke), earnings power is closer to $2.2–2.4B, which supports fair value in the $200–220 range at a defensible 20–22x multiple for a defense prime with peer-conflict tailwinds. The Market Forces module calling this "uninvestable" due to data anomalies is overwrought — the anomaly is a missing FY26 revenue line, not a going-concern issue. Meanwhile the Narrative layer nails the diagnosis: the 79% premium is story, not cash. Insider activity is uninformative — five A-Awards on the same day are comp grants, not conviction signals; the "No Insider Transactions" tag in secondary signals literally contradicts the transaction list shown, which is a data-plumbing issue worth flagging.
The contrarian case that no model is pressing hard enough: defense primes have historically re-rated during sustained geopolitical stress (see LMT, NOC, GD post-2022), and if you believe Ukraine + Taiwan + Middle East drive a decade-long procurement supercycle, then anchoring to a 20-year average sector multiple of 18–22x is the wrong reference class. The Aerojet Rocketdyne integration is also visibly working — op income went from $1.43B (FY23) to $2.11B (FY26 est) while revenue grew ~10%, meaning operating leverage is real and the "M&A story exhausted" bear thesis is empirically wrong for now. That said, ROIC of 6% and ROE of 8.2% are damning for anyone paying 34x — these are utility-like returns on capital being priced like software. Debt/equity of 0.53 and only $1.07B cash against $10.4B debt means limited buyback firepower to defend the multiple if growth stalls.
Net: I dissent from the magnitude of the synthesis call ($163 is too low) but agree on the direction. Fair value is closer to $210–225, implying ~25–30% downside from $292, not 44%. The Q4/FY26 print matters enormously — if the 10.2% margin holds and revenue clears $23B annualized, the bear case weakens materially; if margins revert to 8% and revenue growth decelerates below 5%, the DCF anchor becomes right. Current price requires you to underwrite both sustained margin expansion AND multiple persistence, which is asking a lot when ROIC is below cost of capital. I'd want a 15%+ pullback before starting a position, and I'd trim aggressively above $310.
GPT Reading
At $291.82, L3Harris is being valued like a defense compounder with visible acceleration, but the numbers still look like a solid, improving prime contractor rather than a premium-growth platform. Revenue has stepped up from $19.42B in 2023 to $21.33B in 2025, and the quarterly run-rate now sits closer to $23B: the last four reported quarters with revenue disclosed sum to about $21.97B, and if I annualize the most recent two quarters, I get a business tracking above $23B. That is good, not spectacular. Net income has also improved, from $1.23B in 2023 to $1.50B in 2025 and $1.61B in the latest annual period, while operating income rose to $2.11B. Quarterly margins are trending the right way, from 7.5% in March 2025 to 10.2% in July 2026, which is probably the best datapoint in the file. But even giving full credit for that improvement, the stock is on 34.2x earnings and 19.2x EV/EBITDA for a company generating 6.1% ROIC and 8.2% ROE. That spread between valuation and economic return is the central issue.
The cash flow is real, which is why I do not think this is a broken story. Operating cash flow of $3.11B and free cash flow of $2.68B on capex of just $424M are strong, and imply an FCF yield of roughly 4.9% on the $54.34B market cap. Debt is manageable rather than scary: $10.44B debt against $1.07B cash and $19.64B equity is fine for a defense name with contracted cash flows. But “fine” capital structure and “strong” cash conversion do not justify any price. If I compare the market cap to the latest annual net income of $1.61B, investors are paying nearly 34x for a business whose net margin is still only high single digits and whose growth has been mid-single-digit on revenue. The market seems to be capitalizing geopolitical relevance as if it were equivalent to software-like compounding. It isn’t. Defense primes can deserve premiums, but not this large without either materially higher returns on capital or a clearer growth inflection.
The strongest support for the bull case is that the inflection may be starting to show up in the quarterlies before it is fully visible in the annuals. Revenue has moved from $5.13B in March 2025 to $5.88B in July 2026, about 14.6% growth over five reported quarters, and net income rose from $386M to $600M over the same span, more than 55%. The latest two quarters were especially healthy at 8.9% and 10.2% net margins versus 7.5%-8.4% a year earlier. If that margin improvement is sustainable and tied to portfolio mix, program execution, and cost discipline rather than timing, then the annual earnings base is understated. On a rough run-rate using the last four net-income quarters disclosed, earnings are about $1.87B, not $1.61B, which drops the effective P/E closer to 29x. That is still expensive, but less absurd. A smart bull would also point out that defense budgets, munitions replenishment, resilient communications, missile warning, space payloads, and ISR all remain politically durable, and L3Harris is exposed to exactly those demand pockets. In that framing, today’s multiple is pricing a transition from “mature integrator” to “higher-quality defense electronics franchise.”
I weigh those positives differently because the valuation already assumes they persist. A company with 29x-34x earnings should not merely be improving from mediocre margins to decent margins; it should be producing clearly superior returns on capital and giving confidence in years of above-sector growth. Instead, the hard annual metrics still show ROA 3.9%, ROIC 6.1%, and ROE 8.2%, all too pedestrian for this multiple. There is also a subtle inconsistency in the narrative: if this is truly a transformed, higher-quality defense technology platform, why are the economics still so ordinary? The answer may be that integration, contract mix, and fixed-price execution keep capping upside. The dividend yield of 1.68% and payout ratio of 56% are acceptable, but not enough to make this a compelling shareholder-return story at nearly $292. The model output calling the stock worth around the low $160s may be too punitive if current margin momentum holds, but the direction is right: the market is paying well ahead of the evidence.
What would change my mind is simple. If L3Harris can post several more quarters around or above $5.9B revenue with net margins sustainably at 10%+, that would imply annualized net income above $2.3B and make the current valuation much easier to defend. I would also want to see ROIC move meaningfully above 8%-9% and free cash flow stay comfortably above $2.8B without balance-sheet strain. Conversely, if revenue growth slips back toward low single digits or margins fall back into the 7%-8% range, the stock should de-rate hard because there is no valuation cushion. As it stands, this is a good company priced like a great one.
Grok Reading
L3Harris is a competent, cash-generative defense prime being priced like a high-duration growth platform, and the gap between those two identities is the entire investment question. Trailing economics are respectable but unspectacular: the last clean full year put up $21.33B of revenue, $1.50B of net income, and $2.68B of free cash flow against only $424M of capex, with operating income climbing from $1.43B in 2023 to $1.92B in 2025 and $2.11B in the most recent annual cut. Quarterly run-rate has edged higher—$5.13B to $5.88B across the visible sequence—with net margins expanding from the mid-7s into 10.2% in the latest print and net income swinging from $386M to $600M. That is real operational progress. It is not, however, the profile that justifies a 34.2x P/E, 19.2x EV/EBITDA, or a $54B enterprise on mid-single-digit top-line momentum and an 8.2% ROE / 6.1% ROIC. At $291.82 the stock offers roughly a 4.9% FCF yield on a balance sheet still carrying $10.44B of debt against $1.07B of cash; you are paying growth-stock multiples for a mature earner whose capital returns sit below the cost of capital implied by that multiple.
The quantitative models’ ~$163 fair-value anchor is directionally correct even if the precise DCF is noisy. Earnings CAGR of 14.4% and FCF CAGR of 27.6% look impressive in isolation, but they are partly recovery and mix, not a permanent re-rating of the franchise; recent earnings growth has already decelerated to ~7% year-on-year. Debt-to-equity of 0.53 and a current ratio of 1.19 are manageable, the 1.7% dividend (56% payout) is sustainable off $2.7B of FCF, and there is no evidence of balance-sheet stress. None of that closes a nearly 80% premium to intrinsic-value estimates that already bake in steady defense budgets. The market is capitalizing the geopolitical narrative—China, peer conflict, sole-source ISR/EW/comms moats—as if it converts into either sustained double-digit organic growth or structural margin expansion that fixed-price contracts and labor inflation have historically capped. The data do not yet show that conversion.
The strongest contrary case is straightforward: margins are still expanding (latest quarter 10.2% NI margin is a multi-year high), FCF conversion is excellent, and defense primes with classified backlog and bipartisan budget support have earned scarcity premiums before. A smart bull would argue that $2.68B of annual free cash flow, rising operating income, and embedded DoD franchise value make 19x EBITDA defensible if space, propulsion, and EW keep compounding and if the integration story finally delivers the mid-teens incremental margins the market has been underwriting since the Harris/L3 combination. They would also note that the “catastrophic data anomalies” flag in the pre-flight is a model artifact, not an operational red flag—the reported quarters themselves are coherent and improving. I weigh that less heavily because ROIC at 6% means every incremental dollar of growth is still value-dilutive at a 34x earnings multiple; narrative durability does not substitute for return on capital. Paying 34x for 7% earnings growth and mid-single-digit revenue requires the bull case to keep landing perfectly for years.
I would flip toward neutral or constructive on two concrete developments: (1) two consecutive years of organic revenue growth at or above 8% with ROIC pushing through 10%, proving the platform multiple is earned rather than hoped for, or (2) a sustained re-rating of sector defense multiples toward the high-20s P/E with LHX still compounding FCF above $3B while net debt falls materially below $8B. Absent that, multiple compression is the base case.
Big-3 Panel — where each AI stands
Advanced Analysis Forensic deep-dive · separate lenses
L3Harris is a scaled defense/aerospace prime with revenue climbing from $17.8B (2021) to $21.3B (2025) and FCF of $2.68B on the latest line. Cash conversion is high — OCF/NI 1.77x and accruals -2.8% of assets — indicating reported earnings are backed by cash. The share count has been steadily reduced from 203M to 188M (roughly -1.9% CAGR) with buybacks running 1300% of SBC, so per-share value is being concentrated. Earnings quality checks are clean. The concern side is real but contained. Net debt is roughly $9.4B against only $1.07B liquid cash, and Altman Z at 1.86 sits in the grey zone — the balance sheet is a constraint, not a cushion. Operating margin compressed hard from 18.8% in 2021 to a trough of 7.3% in 2023, recovering only to 9% by 2025, and gross margin has drifted down every year from 30.2% to 25.9%. That is consistent with digesting the Aerojet Rocketdyne acquisition and defense mix/cost pressures, not with a broken business, but the pre-2022 profitability has not returned. Insider tape shows only awards, no open-market buys or sells — neutral signal. Overall this reads as a durable, cash-generative franchise with a leveraged balance sheet and margin work still to do.
Verify before trusting this (6)
- Debt maturity schedule and fixed/floating mix — how binding is the $9.4B net debt in the next 24 months?
- Segment margin bridge (Communication Systems, IMS, Space, Aerojet Rocketdyne) to isolate where 25.9% GM pressure lives
- Aerojet Rocketdyne integration synergy realization vs plan
- Backlog, book-to-bill, and program concentration (classified vs unclassified, top customers)
- Pension and OPEB status; any off-balance-sheet obligations
- Cash tax vs book tax and any one-time items inflating the latest FCF figure
The e2e synthesis pegs deserved value at roughly $159-$163 (DCF $178, EPV floor $109, anchored PE $169) against a $291.82 price - a ~44% downside gap. Even leaning on the most generous method (DCF at $178), the stock still trades ~64% above deserved value. Earnings quality is high so no haircut is warranted, and the Solid company-quality grade supports lifting deserved value modestly, but not enough to close a gap this wide. To justify $292, one has to underwrite sustained double-digit FCF growth, meaningful margin recovery from post-Aerojet compression, and continued multi-decade sole-source dominance - a stack of heroic assumptions. This looks like classic 'great narrative, full price.' The market is paying today for a defense supercycle and platform-monopoly story that is already consensus. There is no dislocation here; the buyback discipline and durable cash flows are real but they are in the price twice over. Fairly-valued would require the stock closer to $175-$195; genuinely cheap starts near $150.
Verify before trusting this (4)
- Post-Aerojet segment margin trajectory in next 2 quarters vs pre-deal baseline
- Free cash flow conversion and buyback pace guidance for FY
- Backlog book-to-bill and any classified program disclosures that would justify higher terminal growth
- Net debt paydown schedule and interest expense trend
The active story on LHX is the platform-monopoly defense narrative: indispensable to U.S. peer-conflict deterrence, sole-source, decadal budget tailwinds. Intensity is strong and durability is high, which is exactly the kind of story that keeps a bid under the stock through ordinary tape wobbles. Recent flow reinforces it: LHX was named prime on the Accelerated Missile Defense Tranche 3 mission (spillover into LUNR), a value-oriented fund publicly reiterated its position, and the July sector read-through from RTX pulled LHX up 5%. That is a name the market wants to own inside the defense complex. The macro tape is mildly risk-on with a sleepy VIX at 14.3, which is neutral-to-positive for a 0.75-beta industrial - it neither pumps nor punishes this profile. Higher rates and a 26x market PE are a background crosswind for all equities, but a low-beta, cash-generative defense prime is one of the least rate-sensitive places to hide, so the macro drag lands soft here. The one live headwind is the bear whisper that LHX is priced 79% above DCF on narrative alone; that shows up as episodic air-pockets (the 8.6% drop on the IPO-related headline) rather than a sustained de-rating. Net: persistent narrative tailwind, muted macro, no visible crack in the story.
Verify before trusting this (4)
- Any softening in DoD budget rhetoric or continuing-resolution risk that would crack the modernization narrative
- Analyst target revisions post-Q2 print - are estimates chasing the story up or fading it
- Whether the July IPO-related overhang resurfaces as a supply/technical headwind
- Rotation signals within defense primes (LHX vs RTX/NOC/GD relative strength)
AI reaches L3Harris mainly through the composition of demand and the location of program margin, not through substitution of its product. The underlying need — sensing, secure communication, jamming, propulsion for US and allied forces — is untouched by cheap intelligence and arguably amplified by it, because autonomous systems multiply the count of nodes needing hardened links and motors. What AI does erode is the differentiation of the software and systems-engineering hours that historically carried LHX content: model-assisted development lets software-first entrants field mission autonomy in months, and DoD's open, modular architecture push turns LHX subsystems into interchangeable payloads inside someone else's kill chain. Offsetting that, AI cuts LHX's own engineering, test and sustainment cost — but on cost-plus and repeatedly-negotiated fixed-price work, savings pass through to the government unless captured on fixed-price production and internal overhead. Net: exposure is real but mid-band, with hardware scarcity providing the floor and software displacement providing the ceiling.
None surfaced.
Verify before trusting this (8)
- DoD topline and munitions budget lines
- Allied tactical radio order flow
- Golden Dome / air-defense program funding
- Aerojet capacity expansion and utilization
- Solid rocket motor lead times
- Night vision / space optics backlog
- MOSA/open-standard mandates in new RFPs
- LHX prime vs sub award mix
The world is spending more on hard defense — replenishment of expended munitions, interceptor inventories, allied rearmament and homeland missile defense — but budget growth is slower than headlines suggest and increasingly contested by non-traditional entrants. That environment rewards owners of physical bottlenecks (solid rocket motors, EO/IR, secure comms waveforms) and punishes integrators of software-definable functions. LHX sits mostly on the right side of that line. Macro is a headwind at the corporate level (10y at 4.63 raises the cost of carrying acquisition debt and compresses the buyback lever) but barely touches demand, which is appropriated rather than cyclical.
When we made this prediction on Aug 16, 2026, LHX was $291.82. We expect it to be $270.00 by Feb 2027, and we consider it great value under $185.00. This is an early model (v0.6.0) — the direction is more reliable than the exact price. Made Aug 16, 2026.
Blue is our prediction, starting the day we made it. Grey is a slower route to the same place — the same destination, taking longer. Black is the actual price, so you can see how we are doing.