GD vs. GE, BA, HON, LMT, TDG, NOC, HEI, TDY, CW, and TXT
Should you be buying General Dynamics stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of General Dynamics include GE Aerospace (GE), Boeing (BA), Honeywell International (HON), Lockheed Martin (LMT), TransDigm Group (TDG), Northrop Grumman (NOC), HEICO (HEI), Teledyne Technologies (TDY), Curtiss-Wright (CW), and Textron (TXT). These companies are all part of the "aerospace & defense" industry.
General Dynamics vs.
GE Aerospace (NYSE:GE) and General Dynamics (NYSE:GD) are both large-cap industrials companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their media sentiment, dividends, valuation, earnings, institutional ownership, risk, analyst recommendations, profitability and community ranking.
GE Aerospace presently has a consensus target price of $221.15, suggesting a potential downside of 9.23%. General Dynamics has a consensus target price of $293.00, suggesting a potential upside of 5.43%. Given General Dynamics' higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe General Dynamics is more favorable than GE Aerospace.
GE Aerospace received 1180 more outperform votes than General Dynamics when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 75.44% of users gave GE Aerospace an outperform vote while only 68.35% of users gave General Dynamics an outperform vote.
In the previous week, GE Aerospace had 55 more articles in the media than General Dynamics. MarketBeat recorded 79 mentions for GE Aerospace and 24 mentions for General Dynamics. GE Aerospace's average media sentiment score of 1.14 beat General Dynamics' score of 0.93 indicating that GE Aerospace is being referred to more favorably in the media.
GE Aerospace pays an annual dividend of $1.44 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.6%. General Dynamics pays an annual dividend of $6.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.2%. GE Aerospace pays out 22.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. General Dynamics pays out 41.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. GE Aerospace has raised its dividend for 2 consecutive years and General Dynamics has raised its dividend for 34 consecutive years. General Dynamics is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.
74.8% of GE Aerospace shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 86.1% of General Dynamics shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.2% of GE Aerospace shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.5% of General Dynamics shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.
GE Aerospace has a beta of 1.38, meaning that its share price is 38% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, General Dynamics has a beta of 0.46, meaning that its share price is 54% less volatile than the S&P 500.
GE Aerospace has a net margin of 14.31% compared to General Dynamics' net margin of 7.93%. GE Aerospace's return on equity of 22.19% beat General Dynamics' return on equity.
GE Aerospace has higher earnings, but lower revenue than General Dynamics. General Dynamics is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than GE Aerospace, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Summary
GE Aerospace beats General Dynamics on 13 of the 22 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the average media sentiment of NYSE and its competitors over the past 90 days as caculated by MarketBeat. The averaged score is equivalent to the following: Very Negative Sentiment <= -1.5, Negative Sentiment > -1.5 and <= -0.5, Neutral Sentiment > -0.5 and < 0.5, Positive Sentiment >= 0.5 and < 1.5, and Very Positive Sentiment >= 1.5.
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This page (NYSE:GD) was last updated on 6/10/2025 by MarketBeat.com Staff