The war in Ukraine drags on and the Iran-Israel conflict remains unsettled, providing opportunities for defense and commercial aircraft contractors like RTX (RTX). Among other projects, RTX is helping modernize the Air Force's F-22 Raptor jet fighter.
Arlington, Va.-based RTX got a welcome upgrade to its IBD Relative Strength (RS) Rating Wednesday, from 70 to 73, putting it within close range of a key milestone. Its other ratings are even higher.
The rating upgrade means that RTX stock is among the top 70% of stocks for price performance this past year. Market history reveals that the top-performing stocks often have an RS Rating of above 80 as they begin their largest price moves. See if RTX can continue to show renewed price strength and clear that threshold.
Among its other ratings Pratt & Whitney-parent RTX has a 79 EPS Rating and an 87 Composite Rating, a mix of IBD's five other top ratings. Like the RS Rating, its Composite is nearing a milestone. The best growth stocks often have a Composite Rating of 90 or higher.
RTX stock also has a C Accumulation/Distribution Rating, showing that mutual funds, insurance funds and the like are buying about as many shares as they are selling. One bullish indicator though is that the number of funds that hold RTX stock rose from 1,854 in the June-ended quarter to 1,940 in September and 1,995 in December.
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RTX stock rose to an all-time high at 128.70 on Oct. 22. It's currently trying to complete a flat base with a 128.70 entry. See if the stock can break out in volume at least 40% higher than normal. Thursday afternoon, the aerospace supplier XXX.
Both earnings and sales growth rose for the aerospace company last quarter. RTX posted 16% earnings growth, up from 9% to $1.45 per share. It reported a 49% leap in revenue, up from 8%, to $20.1 billion. The next quarterly results are expected on or around Jan. 28. Analyst consensus, measured by FactSet, is for sales and profit gains but smaller than its strong results last quarter.
RTX earns the No. 18 rank among its peers in the Aerospace/Defense industry group. Howmet Aerospace (HWM), Embraer (ERJ) and M-tron Industries (MPTI) are among the top 5 highly rated stocks within the group.
IBD's proprietary Relative Strength Rating measures market leadership with a 1 (worst) to 99 (best) score. The score shows how a stock's price behavior over the trailing 52 weeks holds up against all the other stocks in our database.
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