Harris Augments US Air Force's Electronic Warfare Systems

The U.S. Air Force has selected Harris Corporation (NYSE:HRS) to support the electronic warfare system and allied infrastructure for its defense personnel across the globe. The contract for undisclosed amount banks on Harris’ 25-year old rich legacy of unrivalled coverage of the electromagnetic spectrum encompassing air, land and sea domains, in order to gain technical superiority in mission-critical operations.

Per the deal, the company will provide depot support and sustainment engineering, system upgrades and modifications, studies and analysis, transition of future systems, and operations support. The comprehensive technological support base will offer an incisive view of the threat landscape for protection against sophisticated, evolving and future threats. Ably backed by multi-spectral situational awareness and highly accurate threat warning system to sensor fusion and countermeasure capabilities, the electronic warfare systems of the company provide the critical edge to save lives, protect equipment and aid mission success.

The contract achieves particular significance given the fact that a fast-changing geopolitical scenario warrants a robust deterrent system. Various intelligence reports suggest that adversaries have become more adept at using electronic warfare against U.S. forces and their allies. This has prompted a coherent strategy to either reduce the electromagnetic footprint to minimize the risks to geolocate, jam and then fire upon them, or bolster the related infrastructure to thwart such prospects.

In a separate development, Harris secured an $84 million contract from the Space Enterprise Consortium to develop Navigation Technology Satellite-3 — an experimental satellite with new position, navigation and timing capabilities — in order to improve the resiliency of the Global Positioning System. Leveraging its four-decade old expertise in Global Positioning System and space antenna, the indigenous solution of the company will aim to go beyond the traditional bounds of space-based reprogrammable payloads to enable new techniques to combat the evolving threats.

With such prime contracts, the stock has outperformed the industry with an average return of 20.8% over the past three months compared with growth of 7.7% for the latter.

Harris presently has a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell). Some better-ranked stocks in the industry are Ubiquiti Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:UBNT) , sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) and Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR) and Motorola Solutions, Inc. (NYSE:MSI) , carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Ubiquiti has long-term earnings growth expectation of 20.4%. It surpassed earnings estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, the average positive surprise being 23.2%.

Juniper has a long-term earnings growth expectation of 7.1%. It beat earnings estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, the average surprise being 11.4%.

Motorola has a long-term earnings growth expectation of 8%. It beat earnings estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, the average surprise being 13.2%.

Today's Best Stocks from Zacks

Would you like to see the updated picks from our best market-beating strategies? From 2017 through 2018, while the S&P 500 gained +15.8%, five of our screens returned +38.0%, +61.3%, +61.6%, +68.1%, and +98.3%.

This outperformance has not just been a recent phenomenon. From 2000 – 2018, while the S&P averaged +4.8% per year, our top strategies averaged up to +56.2% per year.

See their latest picks free >>