Leidos Holdings Inc

Leidos has appointed Jeff McElfresh, AT&T's chief operating officer, to its board of directors effective October 1. McElfresh's career at AT&T spans more than 30 years, and he currently oversees the company's $250 billion nationwide advanced connectivity infrastructure transformation, an expertise Leidos said aligns with its core digital work and expanding energy infrastructure business. In prior roles at AT&T he oversaw cybersecurity, data management, and labs, and before joining AT&T he began his career as a defense tech engineer on aerospace and maritime projects. His appointment increases the Leidos board to 11 members, and he will serve on the board's Corporate Governance and Ethics and Technology and Information Security committees. Board Chair Bob Shapard said McElfresh's experience and leadership will strengthen the board's independent oversight, while CEO Tom Bell said he looks forward to working with him as Leidos advances its NorthStar 2030 growth strategy.

Leidos has introduced UpHold Effect Agentic SOC Automation, an agentic AI capability that uses AI agents around the clock to help security operations center teams identify threats requiring immediate action amid a deluge of cyber alerts. The capability is a feature within UpHold Effect, Leidos' offering for agentic cyber response and part of the UpHold product suite, and it works across an organization's existing security tools to investigate alerts, gather information and recommend next steps rather than requiring agencies to replace their existing systems. Customers determine how much authority the AI receives based on mission, risk tolerance and governance requirements, and recommendations and actions create auditable records showing what the AI observed, concluded and proposed or did. A FedRAMP Class D High deployment option is available, and the capability can also provide a pathway toward Department of war Impact Level 4 and 5 environments with appropriate government sponsorship. Steve Hull, president of Leidos Digital, said cyber teams need to keep pace with threats without giving up control, and that the capability can take on more of the investigative workload while giving agencies the flexibility to decide when AI recommends an action and when it is allowed to act. Leidos, headquartered in Reston, Virginia, with 50,000 global employees, reported annual revenues of approximately $17.2 billion for the fiscal year ended January 2, 2026.

Leidos Holdings has picked up a fresh U.S. Army award of up to US$127 million for its ARTEMIS airborne intelligence platform, extending operations in Europe and potentially other regions through 2027. Leidos Holdings shares trade at US$123.61 after a 30 day share price decline of about 10%, though the 90 day share price return of roughly 21% and a 3 year total shareholder return close to 39% suggest longer term momentum has been stronger than the recent pullback. The most followed narrative for Leidos Holdings points to a fair value of $156.60, implying the stock is 21% undervalued against the last close of $123.61, a framework that uses a discount rate of 8.06% and links expected earnings, margin pressure, and contract risk into a single view of future cash flows and required return. That view assumes expected revenue growth of about 5.4% a year and a forecast profit margin near 7.6%. The story could be knocked off course if U.S. federal contract spending slows, or if acquisition integrations drag on profitability and cash generation.

Leidos will continue providing the Airborne Reconnaissance and Targeting Exploitation Multi-Mission Intelligence System, known as ARTEMIS, for the U.S. Army under a new contract valued at up to $127 million. The award extends ARTEMIS airborne intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance operations within the U.S. European Command area of responsibility through the summer of 2027, with two additional option years. Leidos has supported the mission since 2020, delivering a Contractor-Owned, Contractor-Operated capability built around a modified Bombardier Challenger 650 aircraft, including the aircraft, mission systems, flight operations, and support services. Jason McCarthy, Leidos senior vice president for Airborne and Mission Solutions, said ARTEMIS combines the flexibility of commercial aircraft with military-grade sensing to deliver timely intelligence wherever commanders need it. The contract was awarded through the Army's Common Hardware Systems-6 next-generation prime contract for rapid procurement of C5ISR hardware solutions and services, and Leidos said the award advances its NorthStar 2030 strategy by expanding its Defense Tech and Mission and Digital Solutions portfolio.

Mercury Systems reported fourth quarter fiscal 2026 revenues of $289.8 million, up 6.1% year on year and 9.2% above analysts' expectations, as the 14 defense contractors stocks tracked by the report collectively beat consensus revenue estimates by 4% and guided next quarter 1.1% above expectations. Chairman and CEO Bill Ballhaus said the company delivered record bookings, record backlog, record revenue, the highest EBITDA margin of the year, and robust free cash flow, though Mercury shares are down 18.5% since reporting and trade at $85.56. Huntington Ingalls posted the group's best quarter, with revenues of $3.42 billion, up 10.9% year on year and 8.2% above expectations, while its shares have traded sideways at $278.53. Parsons delivered the weakest quarter, with revenues of $1.58 billion, flat year on year and 1.9% below expectations, alongside full-year revenue and EBITDA guidance that missed significantly, sending its stock down 25.5% to $46.19. Northrop Grumman reported revenues of $10.88 billion, up 5.1% and 0.5% above expectations, with shares flat at $526.95, and Leidos reported revenues of $4.56 billion, up 7.2% and 2.6% above expectations, with its stock up 10.4% at $131.09. On average, defense contractors shares are down 2.9% since the latest earnings results.

Leidos Holdings secured an $875 million contract extension to support and modernize networks serving more than 650,000 Navy and Marine Corps personnel worldwide. The agreement covers network services and infrastructure supporting the Navy Marine Corps Intranet, ONE-Net and Marine Corps Enterprise Network, enhancing secure connectivity for military operations across global locations. The award aligns with the company's NorthStar 2030 strategy, which focuses on digital modernization, cybersecurity and mission-critical technology solutions, and should provide additional revenue visibility while reinforcing Leidos' role in critical defense IT programs. Shares of Leidos have lost 29.7% in the past year compared with the industry's 17.7% decline, and the stock carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

The Department of the Navy has awarded Leidos $875 million for the second option year of the Next Generation Enterprise Network Service Management, Integration and Transport contract, keeping more than 650,000 U.S. Navy and Marine Corps personnel securely connected worldwide. Under the award, Leidos manages more than 425,000 devices at more than 2,500 sites around the globe, handling all aspects of user support, operations and IT transformational activities on the Navy Marine Corps Intranet, the Outside the Continental United States Navy Enterprise Network and the Marine Corps Enterprise Network. Steve Hull, president of Leidos Digital, said military and civilian personnel rely on these networks to communicate, make decisions and carry out missions that protect the nation and its allies. Since being awarded the contract in 2020, Leidos has introduced automation that delivers patches to network devices 93% faster and accelerates patching across the enterprise by 94%. DJ LeGoff, a retired Navy captain and the Navy and Marine Corps portfolio leader at Leidos, said the results reflect the team's round-the-clock dedication. The award supports Leidos' NorthStar 2030 strategy and its focus on digital modernization, cyber capabilities and mission software.

Curtiss-Wright announced Monday that it received approximately $40 million in contracts from Leidos to support production of the U.S. Army's Indirect Fire Protection Capability Increment 2 system. The company will supply electromechanical actuators and rugged mission computers for mobile guard-based air defense systems, which are designed to counter cruise missiles, rockets, and unmanned aircraft systems. The work will be performed across Curtiss-Wright's Aerospace & Industrial and Defense Electronics segments and is expected to support Indo-Pacific operations and the defense of Guam.

Leidos has received a five-year, $301 million contract to help the U.S. Army monitor and protect military networks against cyberattacks. The follow-on contract calls for round-the-clock cyber operations supporting the Department of War Information Network, the global communications network used by U.S. military organizations. The award adds to Leidos' backlog and extends an established Army relationship in a defense area benefiting from persistent demand. Leidos plans to equip its cyber specialists with AI-enabled tools intended to improve situational awareness, accelerate threat detection and coordinate responses across military networks. The company said its previous work on the Army program combined cyber operations, engineering and technology development, helping reduce the time between identifying a potential attack and responding to it.

Punta Cana Airport and SeeTrue have deployed SeeTrue's artificial intelligence platform to detect drugs and undeclared currency at the airport's checkpoint. The technology is part of an integrated checkpoint security solution recently deployed with Leidos, using the ClearScan checkpoint CT baggage scanner running SeeTrue's AI-based threat detection algorithms. This marks the first use of SeeTrue's AI-driven algorithms for enhanced detection of drugs and undeclared currency with ClearScan technology at an international airport. The deployment was supported by PBS Dominican Republic Office, Leidos' local partner, and has increased checkpoint efficiency and passenger processing capacity at Punta Cana Airport.

Leidos reported second-quarter revenue of $4.6 billion, a 7% year-over-year increase, and raised its full-year guidance for revenue, earnings, and cash flow. Organic revenue grew 4%, adjusted EBITDA margin was 13.8%, and non-GAAP diluted earnings per share rose to $3.26 from $2.37 a year earlier. The company generated a record $793 million in operating cash flow and $761 million in free cash flow, while net awards reached $5 billion for a book-to-bill ratio of 1.1. Defense bookings were particularly strong with a 2.2 book-to-bill ratio, and the Homeland segment posted 32% total growth. Leidos now expects fiscal year 2026 revenue between $17.5 billion and $17.9 billion, non-GAAP diluted EPS of $12.05 to $12.45, and operating cash flow of approximately $1.75 billion. The improved outlook incorporates headwinds from the suspension of incentive payments in the Veterans Benefits Administration medical disability examination business, which is expected to sustain around second-quarter revenue levels with margins near 20% for the rest of the year. CEO Tom Bell highlighted accelerating procurement activity across defense and intelligence segments and pointed to a $12 billion pipeline of visible opportunities over the next 12 months.

CoreWeave shares rose about 10% on Monday as investors weighed strong Big Tech results and sustained demand for AI computing infrastructure ahead of the company's August 11 earnings report. The cloud infrastructure provider, which builds its platform around Nvidia graphics processors for AI training and inference, is expected to report a quarterly loss of $1.27 per share compared with a loss of 27 cents a year earlier, with revenue forecast at $2.56 billion, up from $1.21 billion. Analysts currently have a consensus Buy rating and an average price target of $140.53. Recent quarterly results from Microsoft, Amazon, Apple and Meta showed higher revenue, with cloud and AI contributing to performance, including 37% growth in Amazon's AWS revenue and 43% growth in Microsoft's Azure. Separately, CoreWeave and Leidos announced a partnership to build secure AI cloud services for U.S. intelligence and defense agencies, supporting classified workloads, cyber operations, threat modeling and tactical AI deployments.

Leidos has been selected by Sierra Space to provide infrared sensing payloads for 18 missile warning and tracking satellites as part of the Accelerated Missile Defense Tranche 3 Tracking Layer. The payloads combine infrared sensing with onboard digital signal processing to generate tracking data directly aboard the satellite, reducing latency. Leidos will also supply ground support equipment, mission expertise, operations support and sustainment. The company has already demonstrated these technologies on orbit with four Tranche 0 payloads operating since 2023, and is delivering sensors for Tranche 1 and Tranche 2. The AMDT3 award extends Leidos' contributions across multiple Space Development Agency tranches and supports the broader Golden Dome for America missile defense objectives.

CoreWeave surged more than 10% in premarket trading Thursday after partnering with Leidos to pursue secure AI-cloud work for U.S. intelligence and defense agencies. Under the collaboration, CoreWeave will provide its AI-native cloud platform while Leidos leads mission integration, security architecture, accreditation support, and customer delivery. Proposed services include classified model training and inference, intelligence-analysis tools, cyber simulation ranges, synthetic data, and edge-to-cloud orchestration. The agreement builds on CoreWeave Federal, launched to bring the company's commercial AI infrastructure into government environments, with Leidos adding decades of federal contracting experience. However, the contemplated work remains subject to future definitive agreements, and deployments will depend on mission requirements and federal appropriations.

Shares of AI cloud infrastructure companies rebounded sharply on Thursday, with Nebius Group up 27% to $188.77, CoreWeave up 24% to $75.45, and Oracle up 7% to $125.54. The gains came as a risk-on mood lifted the NASDAQ 100 by 3%, helping the hardest-hit AI names recover from a prior selloff driven by credit-swap cost fears. Oracle's rise was supported by news that it is adding Google's Gemini AI models to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, while CoreWeave rallied on a newly announced collaboration with Leidos to deliver secure AI cloud services for U.S. national-security missions. Nebius had no company-specific catalyst, suggesting its surge was largely a technical bounce amplified by positive AI sentiment following Microsoft's strong earnings. The broader cloud sector remained flat, with the First Trust Cloud Computing ETF up just 0.43%, indicating the move was concentrated in a handful of oversold AI infrastructure pure-plays.

Leidos Holdings has launched Parcata, an AI-driven platform that autonomously detects and patches cybersecurity vulnerabilities in real time, and has partnered with DHL Supply Chain to support the UK Ministry of Defence with upgraded logistics and supply chain services. Both developments are positioned as part of Leidos' NorthStar 2030 strategy and were announced ahead of mid 2026. Leidos shares recently closed at $114.37, with the stock up 6.6% over the past week and 13.9% over the past month, though it is down 37.7% year to date and 28.2% over the past year. The launch of Parcata and the DHL partnership add fresh company-specific developments for investors to track, potentially shaping where the company focuses capital and engineering talent under its NorthStar 2030 plan.

Leidos successfully demonstrated a tactical cyber detection capability during the U.S. military's Valiant Shield 2026 exercise. The demonstration took place during the multinational field training exercise held in Guam from June 22 through July 2. The company's Cyber and Electromagnetic Activities Resiliency System, or CRS, detected simulated cyber intrusions and identified unusual activity across tactical platforms and networks, providing operators with early warning of potential cyber threats before they could affect military operations. Leidos said CRS is intended for military environments where conventional cybersecurity tools may have limited visibility into connected mission systems, monitoring mission equipment, sensors and networks for signs of unusual cyber activity. Jason O'Connor, president of Leidos Intelligence, stated that cyber resilience is now essential to military readiness and that the exercise showed CRS can provide awareness in realistic field conditions.

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Lockheed Martin is facing delivery delays on the U.S. Army's Dark Eagle hypersonic missile program due to quality defects in manufacturing. Lt. Gen. Frank Lozano, the Army's top missile program official, said the final two missiles from the initial eight-missile installment could be delivered in about two months, potentially making the unit at Fort Lewis-McChord fully combat ready. The Army hired Boston Consulting Group roughly a year ago to help improve production, while Leidos Holdings is also a prime contractor on the program. The U.S. has spent more than $12 billion on hypersonic weapons since 2018 but still trails China and Russia in deployment. At least $50 billion remains earmarked for the Army program and the Navy's related Conventional Prompt Strike weapon, though the Government Accountability Office warns that quality and production problems have delayed testing and deliveries, with the Navy's production rate well below its target of 12 rounds per year.

Leidos Holdings and DHL have formed a strategic alliance to pursue the UK Ministry of Defence's Future Defence Support Services programme. Operating as the Logistics & Mission Support Alliance, the partnership combines Leidos' defence integration expertise with DHL's logistics capabilities to deliver integrated and scalable logistics support. The alliance will function as a single team, managing infrastructure and maintaining surge capacity for defence operations, while leveraging advanced technologies including artificial intelligence, data analytics and automation to optimize logistics and improve demand forecasting. On XETRA, DHL shares were trading 0.11 percent down at 56.92 euros, while Leidos shares were down 0.99 percent at $107.22 in pre-market activity on the NYSE.

While SpaceX dominates aerospace headlines, a simple stock screen reveals Lockheed Martin, Huntington Ingalls, and Leidos all boast stronger fundamentals. Lockheed Martin, the world's largest pure-play defense contractor, generated $5.7 billion in free cash flow over the past year, dwarfing SpaceX's $19.8 billion cash burn. Huntington Ingalls, a military shipbuilder, produced $792 million in free cash flow, exceeding its $605 million net income. Leidos, a defense technology specialist, trades at just 7.2 times free cash flow and 0.8 times annual sales, making it the cheapest of the trio. All three are profitable and cash-flow positive, in stark contrast to SpaceX's $8.7 billion net loss.

Mechanical Orchard announced the Summer 2026 release of its Imogen mainframe modernization platform, which now integrates with Amazon Web Services Transform to automate verification based on production data flows and includes a new build pipeline that sharply increases the speed of delivering modernized code into production. The integration pairs business rules extraction from AWS Transform with Imogen's behavioral replication, which builds a synthetic replica of legacy data flows to surface runtime behaviors before code reaches production. The release also makes generally available an autonomous build and verification pipeline that eliminates human code review while enforcing security and compliance programmatically, with current customers regularly exceeding 10,000 lines of code per engineer per week. Additionally, Mechanical Orchard has entered a strategic partnership with Leidos to bring Imogen's behavior-based modernization to U.S. federal government agencies running aging mainframe systems.

Stock index futures were higher before the opening bell on Thursday as investors shrugged off rising tensions in the Middle East. Nasdaq 100 futures rose 0.43%, S&P 500 futures gained 0.29%, and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures edged up 0.10%. The U.S. military began launching fresh strikes on Iran hours after President Donald Trump declared the eight-week ceasefire was over, with the latest attacks signaling that efforts to secure a lasting peace agreement were breaking down. U.S. Treasury yields eased as demand for government bonds increased, with the 10-year Treasury yield slipping 1 basis point to 4.57%, the 2-year yield falling about 3 basis points to 4.20%, and the 30-year yield edging down to 5.07%. Top gainers in premarket trading included Leidos up 3.56%, Mid-America Apartment Communities up 1.98%, and CRH up 1.97%, while decliners included Regions Financial down 3.42%, Cincinnati Financial down 2.69%, and United Rentals down 1.72%.

StockStory highlights three value stocks with compelling risk-reward profiles. Urban Outfitters trades at 11.4 times forward P/E, supported by 4.8% average comparable store sales growth over two years and share buybacks boosting earnings per share. Leidos trades at 8 times forward P/E, with 17.6% average backlog growth and a 5.1 percentage point free cash flow margin expansion over five years. Boston Scientific trades at 12.9 times forward P/E, driven by 15.7% average organic revenue growth and a 9.1 percentage point free cash flow margin expansion over five years.

Leidos Holdings has secured four awards under the U.S. Department of State's Evolve contract, a multiple-award indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity program with a $10 billion ceiling, to modernize IT systems for American diplomats worldwide. The awards cover cloud and data center services, application development, network and telecommunications, and customer and end-user support, with a 12-month base period and six option years. Separately, Jefferies analyst Sheila Kahyaoglu downgraded Leidos from Buy to Hold and cut the price target to $140 from $185, though the new target still implies nearly 29% upside. The downgrade reflected a reassessment of the company's defense technology growth prospects.

Leidos has demonstrated a working cell prototype under DARPA's Expeditionary Carbon Utilization for Energy Resilience and Stabilization program that cycled up to 1,000 times in testing, advancing a closed, rechargeable system designed to store energy as carbon-based fuel. The ExCURSion program aims to eliminate the tradeoff between batteries and fuel by integrating carbon combustion, capture, and regeneration into a single platform, with the goal of producing fuel on demand from inputs such as carbon dioxide, water, and electricity. Leidos' approach relies on high-rate carbonate reduction processes in engineered electrolytes and advanced materials that shuttle critical chemical species between electrodes. The intended operational benefits include fewer fuel convoys, reduced exposure to threats, and improved mission endurance, while also reducing dependence on certain critical minerals and traditional fossil fuels. The work is supported by DARPA under Contract No. HR001125C0012.

Following SpaceX’s blockbuster IPO, analysts are pointing to Rocket Lab and Leidos as attractive plays in the space economy. Rocket Lab posted record first-quarter revenue of $200 million, up over 63% year over year, with a $2.2 billion backlog, and its Neutron reusable rocket is set to debut late this year with a five-launch deal already secured. Leidos reported $4.4 billion in first-quarter revenue, a 4% increase, and holds a $48.4 billion backlog, including a NASA AEGIS contract valued at up to $2.5 billion for telecommunications and cybersecurity infrastructure. Both companies are seen as essential infrastructure and defense partners that could benefit as SpaceX lowers the cost of reaching orbit and satellite volumes surge.

Leidos has deployed the cloud-based Joint Management Tool with the Defense Information Systems Agency and U.S. Space Command, giving combatant commands real-time visibility into global satellite communications and sharply cutting command-level reporting and analysis time. The rollout highlights Leidos' role in modernizing military communications with modular, commercial-off-the-shelf software that can be rapidly updated as operational requirements change. The deployment reinforces Leidos' relevance in software-heavy defense work, though the more immediate share price driver remains how investors reassess margin prospects and contract exposure after the Defense Health Agency signaled a move away from Leidos as lead systems integrator. Leidos Holdings' narrative projects $20.4 billion revenue and $1.7 billion earnings by 2029, requiring 5.5% yearly revenue growth and an earnings increase of about $0.3 billion from $1.4 billion today. Two Simply Wall St Community fair value estimates for Leidos span roughly US$183 to US$274 per share, underscoring how far apart individual views can be.