What Could Lockheed Martin Stock Be Worth In Three Years?
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Lockheed Martin (LMT) stock returned 35.0% over the past year, compared to 13.1% for the S&P 500. Anyone buying now is betting the company keeps selling more. Management raised its sales outlook for 2026 again in October, and Lockheed ended September with a record order backlog. So how much is left for someone buying at today’s $603.12?
Lockheed Martin Shares Could Gain About A Third
Under the scenario set out below, a Lockheed Martin share would be worth about $794.86 three years from now, or 31.8% more than today’s price. That works out to 9.6% a year, before dividends.
This scenario grows revenue by 9.8% a year, a quarter faster than the 7.9% Lockheed reported over the twelve months to September 2026. Trefis holds the P/E at today’s level. It then blends today’s net margin, at a 70% weight, with its average at earlier quarter ends. The table sets today’s figures beside those three years out.
| Today | In three years (scenario) | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $79.1 billion | $105 billion |
| Net margin | 8.2% | 8.2% |
| Earnings | $6.51 billion | $8.58 billion |
| P/E | 21.3 | 21.3 |
| Share price | $603.12 | $794.86 |
All of the gain therefore comes from higher revenue, with nothing added from a richer margin or P/E. Third-quarter sales rose 11% to $20.7 billion. Management said higher volume across every segment was behind the increase, including F-35 production at Aeronautics and munitions production at Missiles and Fire Control.
Can Lockheed Martin Keep Selling More?
Management expects all four of Lockheed’s segments to grow sales in 2027. The company ended September with a backlog of $292 billion, up $113 billion from a year earlier. That figure represents about 3.7 times what Lockheed sold over the latest twelve months.
The largest addition in the third quarter was a seven-year PAC-3 missile contract, now worth up to $58.6 billion in total, management said. Management expects sales at Missiles and Fire Control to grow in the mid-teens a year on average over the next five years. A new F-35 agreement also sets a path to 850 U.S. aircraft over ten years, management said. For the whole company, management sees high single-digit revenue growth in 2027, which may be slower than the scenario’s pace; its raised 2026 sales outlook of $80 billion to $82 billion adds little, since three quarters of that year are already in the trailing figures.
How Lockheed Martin’s Upside Changes In Other Scenarios
The table shows the upside when one assumption changes and the other two stay as in the scenario.
| If instead | Upside |
|---|---|
| Nothing changes (the scenario) | 31.8% |
| Revenue growth of 7.8% a year instead of 9.8% | 24.7% |
| Net margin of 8.1% in year three instead of 8.2% | 30.2% |
| 5 years at the same assumptions instead of 3 | 59.0% |
The scenario starts from Lockheed’s fastest sales growth of the past three years. Revenue grew 2.9% in the twelve months to September 2025 and 5.3% in the twelve months to September 2024. From there, the scenario adds a quarter on top of the latest pace.
Revenue growth could slow from the 7.9% Lockheed delivered to 0.17% a year before the share price ends three years where it started, dividends aside. On its own, the net margin could fall to 6.2%, still above the 5.7% Lockheed earned in the twelve months to September 2025, with the same result. Or the P/E could drop to 16.2, about where the stock traded at the end of 2023.
All of the upside in this scenario comes from Lockheed selling more, so sales growth is the measure to watch when the company reports its fourth quarter, expected in January 2027, along with the specific 2027 outlook management plans to give then.
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