FALLS CHURCH, Va. (AP) _ Northrop Grumman Corp. (NOC) on Thursday reported third-quarter profit of $986 million.

On a per-share basis, the Falls Church, Virginia-based company said it had profit of $5.89.

The results beat Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of eight analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $5.60 per share.

The defense contractor posted revenue of $9.08 billion in the period, also surpassing Street forecasts. Five analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $8.84 billion.

Northrop Grumman expects full-year revenue in the range of $35.7 billion to $36 billion.

Northrop Grumman shares have fallen 10% since the beginning of the year, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index has risen slightly more than 6%. The stock has dropped 12% in the last 12 months.

This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on NOC at https://www.zacks.com/ap/NOC

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