American Airlines Group Inc. (NASDAQ:AAL) and Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE:LMT) Corporation (NYSE:LMT) both reported earnings the same day this week. Both companies are being shaped by the same event, the ongoing war involving Iran. Nonetheless, one firm is getting hurt by it, and the other is getting a big boost, and their stock moves on the same day show just how differently one conflict can hit two different industries.

American Airlines Group Inc. (NASDAQ:AAL): Fuel Costs Are Winning

American Airlines Group Inc. (NASDAQ:AAL) cut how much money it expects to make this year. It now says it could earn as much as 65 cents a share or lose as much as 65 cents a share for all of 2026, with breakeven right in the middle. That’s worse than its last guess in April, which ranged from a loss of 40 cents to a profit of $1.10 a share, and that April number was already a cut from what the company expected at the start of the year. The reason is simple: jet fuel got much more expensive again. American Airline’s fuel costs jumped 83% in the second quarter, almost exactly matching how much extra revenue it brought in. That means the fare increases barely kept up with the fuel bill. Higher ticket prices only covered about half of the added fuel cost. For the current quarter, American now expects to lose between 10 cents and 70 cents a share, far worse than the 26-28 cents in profit Wall Street had expected. The stock fell about 8% on the news.

American’s second-quarter numbers themselves actually beat expectations, with 15 cents a share in adjusted profit versus 3 cents expected and revenue of $16.74 billion versus $16.71 billion expected. But that quarter is already old news. What spooked investors is what comes next. Every one-cent rise in fuel prices costs American Airlines about $46 million a year, and fuel prices have been swinging wildly for weeks. CEO Robert Isom said in a note to staff, “While there’s still work ahead, the progress we’re making is real,” but American also has less room to absorb these costs than rivals Delta and United, whose profit margins are already bigger.

Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE:LMT): War Means More Orders

Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE:LMT) had the opposite kind of day. The firm raised its full-year sales guidance to a range of $79.75 billion to $81.75 billion, up from $77.5-80 billion, and raised its profit guidance too, now $29.95 to $30.65 a share. Both numbers beat what Wall Street expected. Revenue for the quarter came in at $20.06 billion, up 11%, and profit was $1.84 billion, or $7.94 a share, way up from just $1.46 a share a year ago, when the company had taken a big one-time charge. The growth is coming from missiles. Sales in that part of the business jumped about 20% to $4.1 billion, driven by production of PAC-3 and Precision Strike missiles, both of which have actually been used in the war against Iran, along with more THAAD missile interceptors after a $35 billion deal signed in June to quadruple how many the firm makes. Lockheed’s order backlog, i.e., work it hasn’t finished yet but is already contracted to do, hit a record $230.4 billion, up nearly 40% from a year earlier. The company’s free cash flow also jumped, from almost nothing to nearly $3 billion. The stock jumped as much as 10% on the news. CEO Jim Taiclet said the government is giving Lockheed more freedom to move fast than it usually does, because the Pentagon needs weapons stockpiles rebuilt quickly after using so many in Ukraine and now Iran.

That raises a real question. Whether one firm got lucky and another unlucky, or if war naturally creates clear winners and losers based on what each company sells?

It’s Not a Coincidence, But It’s Not Simple Either

There’s a strong case this divide is exactly what you’d expect. War drives up oil and fuel prices, which directly hurts any company that burns a lot of fuel, like an airline. War also drives up demand for the things that get used up in a war, missiles, interceptors, munitions, which directly helps a firm that makes those things. That’s not two random outcomes. That’s the same event working through two completely different types of businesses in completely predictable directions.

But it’s not quite that clean either. American Airlines Group Inc. (NASDAQ:AAL)’s own numbers show fare increases are covering almost half of the extra fuel cost, so this isn’t a company doing nothing, it’s a firm whose costs are simply rising faster than it can raise prices. If fuel prices ease, American’s numbers could look a lot better fast, the same volatility that hurt it this month can help it just as quickly.

On Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE:LMT)’s side, one analyst pointed out a real catch. A lot of that record backlog and expected missile demand hasn’t turned into signed, funded contracts yet. Congress hasn’t approved the multi-year deals that would lock a lot of this spending in, and there’s real uncertainty around next year’s defense budget. Morgan Stanley raised its price target on Lockheed but kept a neutral rating, saying “framework agreements still must firm up into contracts.” So Lockheed’s win is real today, but some of it is still a bet on paperwork getting finished, not money already locked in.

Insider Monkey’s Hedge Fund Data Analysis

Insider Monkey’s hedge fund database shows funds saw this split coming before either earnings report even happened. Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE:LMT) was held by 83 hedge funds at the end of Q1 2026, up sharply from 59 the quarter before, a 41% jump in the number of funds owning it. The dollar value those funds held nearly doubled too, from $2.9 billion to $5 billion. American Airlines moved the opposite way. It was held by just 42 funds, down from 49, and the dollar value funds held was cut by more than half, from $1.77 billion to $748 million. Hedge funds were already moving money out of American and into Lockheed before this week’s news confirmed why.

Conclusion

Same war, same week, two completely different earnings reports. American Airlines Group Inc. (NASDAQ:AAL) is stuck in a fight where its costs are rising faster than its prices can catch up, and it has less cushion than its bigger rivals to absorb the hit. Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE:LMT) is riding a genuine, government-backed demand surge for weapons that isn’t going away anytime soon, though not all of that backlog is signed and funded yet. If the war drags on, expect that gap between the two stocks to keep showing up. One industry pays the price of conflict, and the other gets paid because of it.

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