Palantir Leads Software Stocks Lower

CACI International announced a one-year plus four option periods US$1.50 billion-ceiling Apollo award to support U.S. Central Command, alongside being selected by Vantor to provide optical imaging payloads for its planned Vantor Pulse satellite fleet. The Apollo award strengthens near-term revenue visibility and fits a pattern of federal customers consolidating critical work with fewer providers on large, multi-year frameworks, though it does not remove risks around federal budget volatility and contract timing. CACI's narrative projects $12.2 billion revenue and $727.8 million earnings by 2029, requiring 8.3% yearly revenue growth and a roughly $192 million earnings increase from $535.8 million today. Some of the most optimistic analysts already expected CACI to reach about US$12.7 billion of revenue and US$862 million of earnings before this news. The company's forecasts yield a $724.50 fair value, a 16% upside to its current price.

CACI International announced on September 16 that it received a new award, called Apollo, to support US Central Command's information advantage and irregular warfare missions, with a ceiling of $1.5 billion and roughly $1.2 billion expected to be booked. The award follows a fiscal year ended June 30 in which revenue reached $9.6 billion, up 10.9% from a year earlier, with 7.2% of that growth organic, while fourth-quarter revenue grew 17.6% year over year and 15.2% sequentially. Contract awards for the year totaled $10.2 billion, pushing total backlog to $32.0 billion and lifting funded backlog 28.6% to $5.4 billion, and management guided fiscal 2027 revenue to $10.65 billion to $10.85 billion with free cash flow of at least $900 million. That growth has come with a heavier balance sheet: CACI spent $2.64 billion on acquisitions in fiscal 2026, long-term debt nearly doubled to $4.85 billion from $2.85 billion largely tied to the ARKA acquisition, and interest expense rose 35.6% to $215.5 million, helping push fourth-quarter net income down 0.7% to $156.8 million and diluted earnings per share down 1.3% to $7.05. Fixed-price work made up 34.8% of fourth-quarter revenue, up from 26.9% a year earlier, shifting more execution risk onto CACI, while hedge fund ownership fell to 35 funds from 44 and short interest sat at 5.44% of float.