Conviction / Primes and Integrators
HII
Huntington Ingalls Industries
conviction
Huntington Ingalls builds the Navy's aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines and booked an enormous 76 billion dollars of submarine work in the second quarter. Profit margins in shipbuilding are recovering but remain near 6 percent, and the shares are still about 29 percent below their high for the year.
What we judge
The view on expected return from here, 0 to 100.
Whether the thesis could succeed without this company at all. This moves slowly, and only when the company's position genuinely changes.
What we measure
Facts from market data, not judgments.
| Price | $321.48 |
| 30-day move | +11.1% |
| Position in 52-week range | 31 |
| From the 52-week high | -30.1% |
| Average daily volume | $169.0M |
Why it is in the fund
Thesis
Naval autonomy through unmanned undersea vehicles division; sole builder of nuclear carriers and submarines for the Navy.
Standing judgment
Nuclear shipbuilding is the definitional opposite of attritable mass: the highest capital intensity, longest cycle and least software-defined product in the universe, and the REMUS unmanned undersea line inside Mission Technologies is too small to change that. The setup is better than the fit: $76.6B in Block VI Virginia and Columbia submarine modifications booked in Q2, shipbuilding margin guidance raised to 6-6.5% and revenue to $10.2-10.4B, with the stock still 29% below its high. That is a credible recovery trade in a business the thesis is betting against.
What changed, and why
Every move in this number carries the reason it moved. A score does not change without new evidence.
| Date | Conviction | Change | Cause | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-08-05 | 52 | flat | first v3 judgment (v2 score was uninformative, see L-001): Margins are recovering off a genuinely depressed base and the submarine order book is enormous, but 6% shipbuilding margins with decade-long delivery cycles are a poor structure for forward returns and the wrong direction for the thesis. | Q1 2026 shipbuilding segment margin 5.6% vs 6.3% a year earlier on pre-COVID era contracts; Q2 2026 $76.6B in submarine contract modifications (Newport News share roughly $25B Virginia and $5.5B Columbia); FY26 shipbuilding margin guidance raised to 6.0-6.5% and revenue to $10.2-10.4B; FY2027 shipbu |
| 2026-08-05 | 52 | flat | first v3 judgment (v2 score was uninformative, see L-001): Margins are recovering off a genuinely depressed base and the submarine order book is enormous, but 6% shipbuilding margins with decade-long delivery cycles are a poor structure for forward returns and the wrong direction for the thesis. | Q1 2026 shipbuilding segment margin 5.6% vs 6.3% a year earlier on pre-COVID era contracts; Q2 2026 $76.6B in submarine contract modifications (Newport News share roughly $25B Virginia and $5.5B Columbia); FY26 shipbuilding margin guidance raised to 6.0-6.5% and revenue to $10.2-10.4B; FY2027 shipbu |
| 2026-08-05 | 52 | -4 | first v3 judgment (v2 score was uninformative, see L-001): Margins are recovering off a genuinely depressed base and the submarine order book is enormous, but 6% shipbuilding margins with decade-long delivery cycles are a poor structure for forward returns and the wrong direction for the thesis. | Q1 2026 shipbuilding segment margin 5.6% vs 6.3% a year earlier on pre-COVID era contracts; Q2 2026 $76.6B in submarine contract modifications (Newport News share roughly $25B Virginia and $5.5B Columbia); FY26 shipbuilding margin guidance raised to 6.0-6.5% and revenue to $10.2-10.4B; FY2027 shipbu |
| 2026-07-29 | 56 | +13 | migrated from v2 (cause not recorded) | v2 `scores` row |
| 2026-07-24 | 43 | -9 | migrated from v2 (cause not recorded) | v2 `scores` row |
| 2026-07-21 | 52 | +6 | migrated from v2 (cause not recorded) | v2 `scores` row |
| 2026-07-20 | 46 | -3 | migrated from v2 (cause not recorded) | v2 `scores` row |
| 2026-07-08 | 49 | +10 | migrated from v2 (cause not recorded) | v2 `scores` row |
| 2026-07-07 | 39 | +6 | migrated from v2 (cause not recorded) | v2 `scores` row |
| 2026-06-21 | 33 | -3 | migrated from v2 (cause not recorded) | v2 `scores` row |
| 2026-06-20 | 36 | +3 | migrated from v2 (cause not recorded) | v2 `scores` row |
| 2026-06-19 | 33 | +3 | migrated from v2 (cause not recorded) | v2 `scores` row |
| 2026-06-19 | 30 | -9 | migrated from v2 (cause not recorded) | v2 `scores` row |
| 2026-06-12 | 39 | -7 | migrated from v2 (cause not recorded) | v2 `scores` row |
| 2026-06-12 | 46 | -6 | migrated from v2 (cause not recorded) | v2 `scores` row |