General Dynamics (GD)
Industrials · NYSE · US
Fundamentals
Valuation and ratings
General Dynamics trades at $365.63, which is 15% below the $421.35 our discounted cash flow model puts on the business. On that measure alone it screens as undervalued, though a DCF is an argument rather than a measurement, and the market is frequently right about why something is cheap.
Our moat model scores it 50 out of 100, which is a moat, but not a deep one. A moat is a structural reason competitors cannot take the profits away, and it matters more to a long holding period than any single quarter's numbers do.
It changes hands at 23.6 times earnings. Be careful reading that in isolation: for a cyclical business a low P/E arrives at the top of the cycle, when profits are peaking and about to fall, which is exactly when the shares look cheapest and are not.
About General Dynamics
General Dynamics Corporation operates as an aerospace and defense company worldwide. It operates through four segments: Aerospace, Marine Systems, Combat Systems, and Technologies. The Aerospace segment produces and sells business jets; and offers aircraft maintenance and repair, management, aircraft-on-ground support, customer support and custom completion services, modifications, upgrades, and lifecycle sustainment support services. The Marine Systems segment designs and builds nuclear-powered submarines, surface combatants, and auxiliary ships for the United States Navy and Jones Act ships for commercial customers, as well as provides maintenance, modernization, and lifecycle support services for navy ships; offers and program management, planning, engineering, and design support services for submarine construction programs. The Combat Systems segment manufactures land combat solutions, such as wheeled and tracked combat vehicles, Stryker wheeled combat vehicles, piranha vehicles, weapons systems, energetics and munitions, mobile bridge systems with payloads, tactical vehicles, main battle tanks, and armored vehicles; and offers modernization programs, support and sustainment services, and development programs. The Technologies segment provides information technology solutions and mission support services; mobile communication, computers, and command-and-control mission systems; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance solutions to military, intelligence, and federal civilian customers; cloud services, cybersecurity, network modernization, artificial intelligence; machine learning; application development, high-performance computing, and 5G and advanced communications services; and unmanned undersea vehicle manufacturing and assembly services. The company was founded in 1899 and is headquartered in Reston, Virginia.
GD passes 4 of our 30 screens today
Each screen prints the exact criteria it used, and the circumstances in which it is wrong.
Smart money ownership
18 of the funds we track reported a position in their latest SEC 13F filing. Largest first:
- Capital Research Global, Capital Research Global Investors$1.35B · 0.2% of book
- Lewis Sanders, Sanders Capital, LLC$1.24B · 1.5% of book
- Cliff Asness, AQR CAPITAL MANAGEMENT LLC$763.51M · 0.3% of book
- D. E. Shaw, D. E. Shaw & Co., Inc.$313.39M · 0.2% of book
- Thomas Gayner, MARKEL GROUP INC.$268.40M · 1.2% of book
A word of warning on reading these figures: a 13F reports the market value of a holding, so a fund that traded nothing at all still appears to have sold when the price fell. We found 102 companies where the standard reading gives the opposite answer. Only the share count is honest.
Common questions
Is General Dynamics (GD) undervalued?
Against our discounted cash flow estimate of $421.35, GD at $365.63 is 15% below fair value. That is one model's answer, not a recommendation, and most of a DCF's output sits in a terminal value nobody can forecast.
Which funds own GD?
18 of the institutions we track reported a position in GD in their most recent SEC 13F filing. A 13F is filed up to 45 days after quarter end, so it tells you what a fund held then, not what it holds now.
What is GD's P/E ratio?
GD trades at 23.6 times earnings. A low P/E is not automatically cheap: on a cyclical company it is usually a warning that earnings are at a peak.
The full research page for GD, with financial statements, ownership detail, peer comparison and alerts, is free inside the app.
Data from company filings, exchange quotes and SEC EDGAR 13F disclosures. Quotes are delayed. Metrics we do not have are left out rather than estimated. Educational information, not financial advice.