Company Events & EarningsExtended setexperimental liveNew

Federal Contract Award Drift

Updated weeklyData needs: mediumlong only

2026

#206 federal_contract_award_drift — USAspending.gov procurement awards predict revenue-visibility upgrades; adapted from Cohen-Malloy-Pomorski 2012 (JF) institutional-information-diffusion.

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In plain terms

Big federal contract wins quietly preview revenue beats 1-2 quarters out. Long the ticker the day after a top-decile award.

How it works

Federal contract awards lock in revenue visibility 30-60 days before the sell-side catches up. Strongest in defense primes (LMT, RTX, NOC, GD, BA, LHX, HII) and IT services (LDOS, SAIC, CACI, BAH). A contract award whose total_obligation lands in the top decile of the ticker's prior 5y award distribution opens a long T+1, held 30/60/90 days.

Live results

0 times picked on its own · 11 times inside a blend (11 beat the stock) · updated 2026-06-06

This strategy is a frequent ingredient in blends that combine a few strategies on one stock. It has contributed to 11 such blended picks (11 of which beat simply holding the stock). Picking it on its own is only one of the ways it shows up.

How its picks scored vs. buy & hold

Each pick is graded on a recent year it was never tuned on, against simply owning the same stock

Where its edge concentrates

Share of picks in each company-size group that beat buy & hold

How often it trades

Active vs. patient. Bars on the left mean it waits for rare setups; bars on the right mean it trades often

Return vs. buy & hold

How much each pick beat or trailed simply owning the stock over the test year (extreme microcap moves trimmed)

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Data dependencies

Daily prices
Adjusted-close OHLCV for every US-listed ticker; primary price feed.
Federal contracts
A data feed this strategy reads, refreshed on its normal schedule.

Expected edge

Reported return: 30-60d revenue-visibility lead
Tested over: T+1 to T+90d

30-60d revenue-visibility lead → multiple expansion before sell-side estimate revisions.

Example tickers where this is likely to fire

LMT RTX NOC GD BA LDOS SAIC CACI PLTR

Illustrative only, the signal fires based on the live data, not a fixed list.

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Explore Federal Contract Award Drift on alphactor.ai

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