NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of Orbital ATK (OA) were falling 18.45% to $72.37 on heavy trading volume mid-Wednesday morning after the company reported that accounting errors recently obscured up to $450 million in losses on a Pentagon arms contract, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Over 2.4 million shares of the company have traded so far today, higher than the 30-day daily average of 429,000 shares.

The issues were discovered after the company installed new enterprise systems. Most of the errors relate to a $2.3 billion contract to manufacture and supply ammunition to the U.S. Army at a plant in Independence, MO.

The misstatements overestimate revenue by $100 million to $150 million in total.

The Dulles, VA-based aerospace and defense company will be restating financials following the errors.

Orbital will be delaying its quarterly filings with regulators for approximately 45 days.

"We don't think there was any misbehavior," CEO David Thomson said on a call with investors following the company's quarterly earnings report.

Separately, TheStreet Ratings objectively rated this stock according to its "risk-adjusted" total return prospect over a 12-month investment horizon. Not based on the news in any given day, the rating may differ from Jim Cramer's view or that of this articles's author.

TheStreet Ratings rated this stock as a "hold" with a ratings score of C.

The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its revenue growth, largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures and notable return on equity. However, as a counter to these strengths, we find that the company's profit margins have been poor overall.

You can view the full analysis from the report here: OA