Applied Aerospace & Defense, Inc. (AADX) Stock Price & How to Invest

Applied Aerospace & Defense builds the physical parts that other people's programs depend on: nose cones, fairings, payload adapters and satellite assemblies for launch and space vehicles, flight structures for fixed-wing, rotary and autonomous aircraft, and casings and precision platforms for radar, air defense and precision strike systems. The company describes itself as vertically integrated, and the capability list is unusually specific for a supplier of this size, covering flow forming, spin forming for propulsion tanks, RF-transparent composites, deep hole boring and large-scale clean room capacity. It runs eleven plants across six states with about 1.5 million square feet of production space and roughly 1,540 employees. The corporate entity was assembled from 2022 onward by Greenbriar Equity Group out of businesses with a much longer manufacturing history, and it has kept buying: Innovative Composite Engineering in October 2024, NeXolve in March 2025 and Consolidated Boring in March 2026.

The investment picture is a growth story attached to a freshly deleveraged balance sheet. Second-quarter 2026 revenue of ~$167.3 million was up 47.4% year over year, and about $22.5 million of that increase, or 19.8%, came from the existing business rather than acquisitions. Contract backlog stood at ~$1.13 billion at June 30, and management guided full-year 2026 revenue to ~$670 million to ~$690 million with adjusted EBITDA of ~$150 million to ~$155 million. The headline GAAP net loss of ~$154.0 million in the quarter is almost entirely a one-off, driven by ~$110.8 million of first-half share-based compensation that vested on the IPO plus transaction costs. What is not one-off is the margin trend underneath: gross margin fell from ~28.2% to ~22.2% year over year as mix shifted toward newer programs and acquired businesses. The market has been unsentimental about it, marking the shares from a July high near $24 to about $15.50, below the $20 offer price.

Customer concentration is severe: three customers were 31%, 18% and 10% of 2025 revenue, 59% combined, and their names are not disclosed. Goodwill and intangibles totalled roughly $935 million against ~$1.50 billion of assets at June 30, so an integration that disappoints at any acquired unit runs through the income statement as an impairment rather than a soft quarter. Greenbriar still holds the large majority of the stock, which makes AADX a controlled company under NYSE rules with the reduced governance requirements that allows, and the 180-day IPO lockup from June 3, 2026 expires around the end of November 2026, putting a large block of currently restricted shares in a position to become sellable against a public float of only about 44 million shares. Gross margin compression of roughly 600 basis points year over year has not yet been shown to be temporary. And because a portion of the work is classified, some of the business cannot be examined from outside at all.

7 analysts publish price targets on AADX, averaging $25.14 against a $15.50 price as of August 2026, or +62.2%. The published targets run from $23.00 to $30.00, a narrow spread, and the ratings split 6 buy, 1 hold, 0 sell. Over the last six months there has been 1 raise and 1 cut among the published actions. A price target is what an analyst published on a date, not a prediction, and sell-side ratings skew positive across the whole market.

Read the full AADX forecast and price target for the target table, the recent rating actions by firm, and how the consensus has shifted.

We give no verdict on Applied Aerospace & Defense, Inc.. Both cases are real, which is why the question is contested at all, so here is the strongest version of each.

The case for buying. Precision strike and air defense demand is the fastest-moving piece. C5ISR and precision strike revenue went from ~$13.7 million in the second quarter of 2025 to ~$49.6 million in the second quarter of 2026, a near-quadrupling that reflects munitions rearmament and layered missile defense budgets rather than any single contract win. The most optimistic published target, $30.00, assumes this works close to its best case.

The case against. Customer concentration is severe: three customers were 31%, 18% and 10% of 2025 revenue, 59% combined, and their names are not disclosed. The most pessimistic target, $23.00, is roughly what AADX is worth if this bites instead.

Read the full bull and bear case on AADX, including what would have to change to break either one. Walnut is not an investment adviser.

A simple financial snapshot. These are approximations and refresh quarterly; for current figures see Applied Aerospace & Defense, Inc.'s investor relations page or your broker.

• Revenue (TTM through Q2 2026): ~$576M
• FY2026 revenue guidance: ~$670M to ~$690M
• FY2026 adjusted EBITDA guidance: ~$150M to ~$155M
• Q2 2026 net loss (GAAP): ~-$154.0M, including ~$110.8M of first-half share-based comp
• Contract backlog (June 30, 2026): ~$1.13B
• Market cap: ~$2.7B at ~$15.50 per share

On guidance, the enterprise value of roughly $3.05 billion works out to about 4.5x 2026 revenue and roughly 20x 2026 adjusted EBITDA, which is a growth multiple rather than a machine-shop multiple. The reported P/E is negative and will stay so for 2026 because of the IPO compensation charge, so the trailing GAAP figure carries no information here. The gap between the $20.00 IPO price, the ~$24.24 high on July 1 and the ~$15.20 low set on August 20 is a reminder that three months of trading history offers very little to anchor a valuation against.

Other names that sit close to AADX: same theme, named as a direct competitor, or held beside it in the same funds. Each entry says which. Worth a look if you are thinking about diversification within a thesis rather than concentration on one ticker.

There are three common ways to get AADX exposure. Buy shares (or fractional shares) directly at any major broker. Hold an ETF that includes it, which spreads the position across many companies. Or build it into a focused thematic portfolio, so AADX sits alongside other stocks that express the same thesis.

Walnut takes the portfolio route. Describe a thesis where AADX fits (for example “AI infrastructure” or “dividend-growth large-caps”) and the AI proposes 5 to 6 constituents with target weights. You review the plan and fund it through your own broker when you're ready.

New to this? Start with how to invest in stocks, see how to analyze a stock with AI, or compare the best AI stock analyzers.

AADX pairs genuine backlog-backed growth in two of the strongest end markets in defense with the specific fragilities of a leveraged roll-up that went public three months ago.

Whether AADX is worth buying today depends more on your time horizon and what you already hold than on any single call. We walk through valuation, what would have to go right, and the risks in is AADX a buy or a sell?, and where the stock could go from here in the AADX stock forecast.

For income investors, whether AADX pays a dividend and how the payout looks is covered in does AADX pay a dividend? And to weigh AADX against a peer, read the full side-by-side comparisons: AADX vs KRMN and AADX vs RKLB.