January 12 Market Close: GovCon Index Down, Lockheed Extends Drag Over Investors’ Continued F-35 Focus

Executive Mosaic’s GovCon Index fell for a second straight session Thursday on continued declines by large aerospace and defense primes as U.S. stocks also tumbled with earnings season at the forefront of investor attention.

GovCon Index gainers outnumbered decliners by a 2-to-1 ratio and two of its 11 S&P 500 components advanced with co-listed McKesson Corp. (NYSE: MCK) the GCI’s top performer overall in a rebound from Wednesday’s plunge and dual GCI-S&P company Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) the lowest performer out of 30 companies.

Lockheed’s stock has dropped 1.38 percent over two sessions after President-elect Donald Trump said in a press conference Wednesday he wanted to have a competition between the company’s F-35 fighter jet and Boeing‘s (NYSE: BA) F-18 Super Hornet combat plane.

Trump has referenced the F-18 as a possible competitor to the F-35 on his Twitter feed and repeatedly criticized the latter aircraft’s costs in tweets since an initial Dec. 12 post.

Shares in Lockheed have fallen 2.01 for the week so far.

Fellow GCI-S&P primes Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC), L3 Technologies (NYSE: LLL) and Boeing ended among the GovCon Index’s five lowest net performers Thursday.

Both declines Lockheed and Northrop exceeded $2.00 as L-3, AECOM (NYSE: ACM) and Boeing all shed at least $1.00 each.

AECOM weighed as the GCI’s fourth-lowest net decliner and worst percentage performer after Deutsche Bank downgraded its rating on the engineering and construction contractor’s stock from “Buy” to “Hold” with a price target cut from $42 to $41.

Deutsche Bank told investors in a research note any infrastructure spending stimulus Trump has advocated for prior to and after the election may be further out than investors previously expected.

Volume in AECOM’s stock totaled 2.69 million shares traded to exceed the three-month average of 1.55 million.

Financial stocks led seven major sectors lower at a 0.7-percent decline with telecommunications the top performer among the remaining three gainers to drag the S&P 500 composite index as the Nasdaq closed lower for the first time this year.

Major U.S. banks JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo are scheduled to report fourth quarter financial results Friday morning before the open to unofficially kick off earnings season

Market Summary

Lowest GovCon Index Net Performers

Lowest GovCon Index Percentage Performers

Top GovCon Index Net Performers

Top GovCon Index Percentage Performers