Which Aerospace and Defense Stock Has Dominated in 2026: GE Aerospace, Boeing, or RTX?

RTX leads 2026 aerospace and defense with a 14% gain, GE Aerospace follows at 11%, and Boeing lags with a 3% decline.

ITA's 8% year-to-date gain trails both RTX and GE Aerospace, showing two of three sector heavyweights beat their own passive benchmark.

GE Aerospace's recurring engine-servicing revenue, RTX's diversified portfolio, and Boeing's production-execution exposure explain why the same sector label hides fundamentally different businesses.

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The 2026 aerospace-and-defense scoreboard has separated cleanly across three widely owned names, and the individual leaders have beaten their own sector basket. RTX ( NYSE:RTX ) has dominated the group, with GE Aerospace ( NYSE:GE ) in second and Boeing ( NYSE:BA ) the only laggard of the three.

RTX stock is up 14% year to date to $208.84, leading the trio into late August. Meanwhile, GE Aerospace stock is up 11% year to date to $341.19, tracking just behind the leader. Boeing stock is the outlier, with shares down 3% year to date to $210.26.

The iShares U.S. Aerospace & Defense ETF ( NYSEARCA:ITA ) sits between the two leaders and the laggard. Notably, ITA ETF shares are up 8% year to date to $233.09, placing the fund behind both RTX and GE Aerospace and ahead of only Boeing. Two of the three headline names beat their own sector benchmark outright, which reverses the usual pattern where a diversified basket smooths out single-name divergence.

RTX Sets the Pace, GE Aerospace Keeps Up

RTX's lead is the story of 2026 in this cohort, and it holds up against the ETF benchmark by a comfortable margin. The stock has outpaced both peers and the sector fund, and its year-to-date gain is meaningfully wider than the ETF's, which isn't the usual outcome for a heavyweight sitting inside a passive basket.

GE Aerospace stock sits only a few points behind RTX and remains comfortably above the fund. Together, the two winners have delivered gains that a passive holder of the ITA ETF alone would have partially captured but not fully matched.

The ITA ETF holds a broad range of aerospace and defense companies well beyond these three, so its return reflects far more than this trio. Its 8% year-to-date gain is a solid result on its own, just not enough to keep up with the two individual winners.