Defense Stocks Surge on Trillion-Dollar Budget Talk

The White House is signaling a big boost in defense spending as part of the fiscal 2026 federal budget, and investors are sending defense stocks soaring higher as a result.

Shares of defense contractors including Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT), RTX (NYSE: RTX), Huntington Ingalls Industries (NYSE: HII), General Dynamics (NYSE: GD), and AeroVironment (NASDAQ: AVAV) are all up 5% or more as of 10:30 a.m. ET, while shares of Science Applications International (NASDAQ: SAIC) are up 3%.

Defense investors have been in a holding pattern of late. While few government observers expected a dramatic pullback in spending, a focus on efficiency and talk of investment in tech instead of new hardware has left investors on edge.

Source Fool.com