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General Dynamics

GD on NYSE. General Dynamics sells aircraft, ships, combat vehicles, weapons, and technology to governments and businesses. Market value $89.7bn.

Watch this stockFree. We tell you when something changes.

Price checks use the past 12 months to June 2026. Quality checks use five annual reports, the latest for the year to December 2025.

Should I look at this?

Worth a closer look

Why it could be worth it

What to watch out for

Nothing big in our quick check. See what could go wrong below.

Read what could go wrong

This is not advice. Check the numbers below.

Compare with another stock

Cash yield
past 12 months to June 2026
7.2%high

For every $100 of what the whole company costs, it produced $7.18 of spare cash in the past 12 months. A savings account pays about $4.

Price to profit
past 12 months to June 2026
16.4×full

You pay 16.4 years of operating profit for the business. The average large US company costs around 18.

Return on capital
five annual reports to December 2025
11.9%five-year median

Each dollar kept in the business earns 12 cents a year. Above 10 is good.

Quality score: 89 of 100. Price score: 86 of 100. Our list needs 70 on quality and 60 on price.

$331.72 a share, 8% above its 1-year low

Over the past year the price has ranged from $306.77 to $400.00.

Dividend: 1.8% a year

Paid every year for at least 5 years

Prices from Monday’s close (5 October).

Five years of cash, in billions

3.4
3.5
3.8
3.2
4.0
6.4
2021202220232024202512 monthsto Jun '26

Spare cash swings from quarter to quarter here: $6.4 billion in the past 12 months, $4 billion in the year to December 2025.

Revenue
$38.5bn$39.4bn$42.3bn$47.7bn$52.5bn
Operating margin
10.8%10.7%10.0%10.1%10.2%
Debt to equity
0.660.570.440.420.32
Shares outstanding
0.27bn0.27bn0.27bn0.27bn0.27bn

Health checks

  • Free cash flow positive5 of 5 years
  • Accounting looks honest (Beneish)Not enough data
  • Financial strength (Piotroski)7 of 8 checks we could run
  • Profit backed by cash (accruals)Yes
  • Debt0.32× equity
  • Revenue growth, five yearsSlow, 6.7% a year
  • Buying back its own sharesRoughly flat

The quarter to June 2026

How the business did, compared with the same quarter a year earlier.

  • Sales: $14.1 billion last quarter, up 8% on a year ago.
  • Profit: $1.2 billion, up 14% on a year ago.
  • It keeps 10 cents of each $1 of sales as operating profit, about the same as a year earlier.
  • Spare cash over the past 12 months: $6.4 billion, up from $4.1 billion.
  • 1% more shares than a year ago. Each share owns a bit less of the company.
  • Debt is $3.2 billion more than cash, down from $7.3 billion a year ago.
  • Sales grew on a year ago in each of the last 4 quarters.
Sales by quarter
Sales by quarter
Quarter toAmount
September 2024$11.7bn
December 2024$13.3bn
March 2025$12.2bn
June 2025$13.0bn
September 2025$12.9bn
December 2025$14.4bn
March 2026$13.5bn
June 2026$14.1bn
Profit by quarter
Profit by quarter
Quarter toAmount
September 2024$930m
December 2024$1.1bn
March 2025$994m
June 2025$1.0bn
September 2025$1.1bn
December 2025$1.1bn
March 2026$1.1bn
June 2026$1.2bn

From the company's quarterly reports to the SEC.

Dates

Next results (estimated)
28 October 2026
Last annual report (10-K)
30 January 2026
Next quarterly (estimated, 10-Q)
28 October 2026

Who owns it

15 long-term investors we follow own it, down from 16 last quarter. 2,209 funds in all.

Jun '25
Dec '25
Jun '26

Sold out this quarter

Largest holders overall

From 13F filings for the quarter ended 30 June 2026.

Big holders and activists

4 investors own more than 5%.

From Schedule 13D and 13G filings: anyone owning more than 5% must file one.

What insiders did

No insider bought shares on the open market in the last 12 months. 10 sold $95m.

  • STEEL ROBERT K
    Director
    Sold
    Date
    23 September 2026
    Shares
    7,440
    Price
    $346.05
    Value
    $3m
  • Wall Peter A
    Director
    Sold
    Date
    10 August 2026
    Shares
    1,990
    Price
    $396.43
    Value
    $788,898
  • Brady Christopher J
    Vice President
    Sold
    Date
    5 August 2026
    Shares
    6,320
    Price
    $383.32
    Value
    $2m
  • NOVAKOVIC PHEBE N
    Chairman and CEO, Director
    Sold
    Date
    3 August 2026
    Shares
    51,568
    Price
    $382.58
    Value
    $20m
  • Gilliland Marguerite Amy
    Executive Vice President
    Sold
    Date
    31 July 2026
    Shares
    43,180
    Price
    $378.04
    Value
    $16m
  • Malcolm Mark
    Director
    Sold
    Date
    17 June 2026
    Shares
    5,480
    Price
    $365.00
    Value
    $2m
  • Burns Mark Lagrand
    Executive Vice President
    Sold
    Date
    12 May 2026
    Shares
    36,480
    Price
    $345.29
    Value
    $13m
  • Burns Mark Lagrand
    Executive Vice President
    Sold
    Date
    11 May 2026
    Shares
    36,230
    Price
    $343.49
    Value
    $12m
  • Burns Mark Lagrand
    Executive Vice President
    Sold
    Date
    11 March 2026
    Shares
    10,153
    Price
    $354.95
    Value
    $4m
  • Gilliland Marguerite Amy
    Executive Vice President
    Sold
    Date
    11 March 2026
    Shares
    3,819
    Price
    $353.50
    Value
    $1m

From Form 4 filings: insiders must report trades in their own company's shares within two days.

Warning signs in its filings

Problems the company itself reported to the SEC, in its own words.

None of the serious warning signs we check for were found. 1 thing worth knowing.

We look for five warning signs: doubt it can keep going, weak checks on its own accounts, a notice that its past accounts can't be relied on, a change of auditor, and one customer bringing in a big share of sales. We don't check lawsuits, investigations or debt yet.

We checked the auditor's report, internal controls, restatement notices, auditor changes and big customers in the 10-K filed 30 Jan 2026, plus the 10-Q filed 29 Jul 2026 and 5 later 8-Ks.

  • One big customer

    Worth knowing

    One customer brings in a big share of sales: 68% last year. Losing that customer would hurt.

    “In 2025, 68% of our consolidated revenue was from the U.S. government, 15% was from U.S. commercial customers, 8% was from non-U.S. government customers and the remaining 9% was from non-U.S. commercial customers.”

    From the 10-K filed 30 January 2026, Item 1. Business. Read it in the filing

A 10-K is the yearly report every US company files with the SEC. An 8-K is a short notice of a big event.

What could go wrong

Cheap for a reason is the question the numbers cannot answer.

Whether the price already reflects the risks is what the deep dive is for.

The deep dive

Everything above is arithmetic on public filings. The deep dive reads the last ten years of annual reports, the proxy statements, and the earnings calls, then argues the case the way Buffett, Klarman, and Hohn would, and checks every claim against the source.

  • What the business is worth, as a range, and the margin of safety at today’s price
  • Prices to start buying, buy, and buy hard
  • The three things that would make this a mistake
  • Every number footnoted to the filing it came from
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What a finished deep dive looks like

Not advice. Numbers on this page come from SEC filings and are updated each night; prices are updated again after the US market closes. The five-year figures are rounded.