Aerospace and defense company Rocket Lab (NASDAQ:RKLB) will be reporting earnings tomorrow after the bell. Here’s what to expect.

Rocket Lab beat analysts’ revenue expectations by 2.5% last quarter, reporting revenues of $104.8 million, up 54.9% year on year. It was an exceptional quarter for the company, with EBITDA guidance for next quarter exceeding analysts’ expectations.

Is Rocket Lab a buy or sell going into earnings? Read our full analysis here, it’s free.

This quarter, analysts are expecting Rocket Lab’s revenue to grow 118% year on year to $130.5 million, improving from the 15.9% increase it recorded in the same quarter last year. Adjusted loss is expected to come in at -$0.07 per share.

Analysts covering the company have generally reconfirmed their estimates over the last 30 days, suggesting they anticipate the business to stay the course heading into earnings. Rocket Lab has missed Wall Street’s revenue estimates twice over the last two years.

Looking at Rocket Lab’s peers in the aerospace segment, some have already reported their Q4 results, giving us a hint as to what we can expect. Curtiss-Wright delivered year-on-year revenue growth of 4.9%, beating analysts’ expectations by 5.9%, and Howmet reported revenues up 9.2%, topping estimates by 0.7%. Curtiss-Wright traded down 1.2% following the results while Howmet was up 4.2%.

Read our full analysis of Curtiss-Wright’s results here and Howmet’s results here.

Stocks generally had a good 2024. The Fed fought high inflation and won without sending the economy into a recession, otherwise lovingly known as a soft landing. The U.S. Central Bank is now cutting rates. That, plus the election of Donald Trump in November 2024, sent markets even higher, and while some of the aerospace stocks have shown solid performance, the group has generally underperformed, with share prices down 5.7% on average over the last month. Rocket Lab is down 26.6% during the same time and is heading into earnings with an average analyst price target of $25.50 (compared to the current share price of $21.25).

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