Is GE Aerospace’s Lead Already In Its Stock Price?
GE Aerospace (GE) earns the widest operating margin in a group of six peer companies, and it grows revenue faster than all but one of them. The market already charges for that lead. Yet over the past twelve months the stock has returned far less than RTX, a slower-growing rival. The quality is real. The question is how much of it you are already paying for.
What Do You Get For Paying More Than RTX?
Quite a lot. GE grew revenue 21.7% over the last twelve months, nearly twice the 11.8% at RTX. It kept 18.7% of sales as operating profit, against 11.2% at RTX. For that lead, GE trades at 37.1 times earnings and RTX at 33.5 times, a premium of about 11%.
| GE | RTX | HON | BA | LMT | NOC | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Market Cap ($ Bil) | 332.6 | 259.6 | 67.4 | 158.1 | 120.8 | 73.1 |
| PE Ratio | 37.1 | 33.5 | 8.2 | 64.9 | 19.2 | 16.3 |
| LTM Revenue Growth | 21.7% | 11.8% | 5.4% | 24.8% | 7.2% | 5.9% |
| LTM Operating Margin | 18.7% | 11.2% | 16.6% | -5.4% | 11.9% | 10.7% |
| 12M Stock Return | 6.8% | 22.3% | 8.9% | -5.7% | 12.0% | -9.3% |
Boeing and Honeywell trade on trailing earnings that include at least one loss quarter, so their multiples are not clean-year figures. The case that the lead is already priced rests on GE carrying the highest multiple of the four companies with clean earnings, not on the size of its gap to RTX.
Owners have not been paid for that lead lately. GE stock returned 6.8% over the past twelve months, fourth of the six, while RTX returned 22.3%. With that premium already reflected in current valuation multiples, further share outperformance likely requires that margin and growth lead to expand even further.
Where Does GE Earn Its Margin Lead?
Mostly after the engine is sold. GE engines make up the industry’s largest fleet, 80,000 and growing, by the CEO’s count. The CFO calls services the biggest and highest-margin part of the business. Commercial services revenue rose 32% in the first half of 2026.
Demand for that work is booked well ahead. The commercial services backlog stands at roughly $170 billion.
The CFO calls the drags on that margin a matter of timing. Losses on early GE9X engines are expected to peak by 2028, and LEAP services margins should catch up with the rest of services by then. Even with those drags, he says, total-company margins are largely flat, and he expects them to expand in 2028 and beyond. What limits growth now is supply, which the CEO says is much more of a challenge than demand.
Can GE Build Enough Parts To Meet That Demand?
Not yet. Spare parts delinquencies, meaning shipments delayed for lack of material, grew 20% in the second quarter of 2026 from the first. In early September GE agreed to buy Consolidated Precision Products, a castings supplier, for $11.75 billion.
Guidance already builds in a slowdown. Management expects commercial services revenue to grow at a low double-digit rate in the second half of 2026, well below the first-half pace, against a much tougher comparison.
So the scoreboard is plain. Management sees no reason 2027 should depart from its outlook of double-digit commercial services growth. Hitting that while delinquencies shrink would show the lead holding, and missing it would leave the highest clean multiple in the group resting on a slower business. A scorecard that rates every stock the same way on growth, profitability and valuation puts the whole group side by side.
Is GE Worth The Premium While Parts Run Short?
Perhaps, but only if supply catches up with demand. Nobody can settle that today. You must ultimately weigh whether GE can resolve supply-chain bottlenecks fast enough to support that premium. And a peer group is only one corner of one industry. The Trefis High Quality Portfolio makes that comparison across the whole market. That portfolio has a track record of outpacing the three major indices.