U.S. defense stocks grabbed headlines this week as Washington pushed aggressively to rebuild missile stockpiles, expand production, and modernize the military with artificial intelligence.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the creation of an Autonomous Warfare Command, known as AutoWarCom, to speed up the military’s adoption of drones, robotics, and AI systems.
“The pace of war is changing faster than the process to support it,” Hegseth reportedly said, adding that the military now needs both “quality and quantity.”
Ondas (ONDS) expanded its counter-drone portfolio this week with the launch of Dronebuster REACH, a long-range system designed to electronically disrupt hostile drone communications and navigation.
The first Dronebuster REACH system is already under contract for delivery to the U.S. Office of Naval Research, with capabilities exceeding those of the company’s existing counter-drone products.
Boeing (BA) had one of its strongest weeks in recent memory after the U.S. Navy selected it to develop the F/A-XX sixth-generation fighter jet, beating out Northrop Grumman (NOC) for the award.
The F/A-XX development program is valued at more than $20 billion and will produce multiple test aircraft, with the jet eventually expected to replace the Navy’s F/A-18 Super Hornets in active service.
Boeing also secured a separate $2.38 billion contract for 22 additional F-15EX fighters, bringing the total number under U.S. Air Force contract to 120 aircraft.
RTX’s (RTX) Raytheon unit won a contract worth up to $20.7 billion to accelerate production of AMRAAM air-to-air missiles, with the Pentagon targeting annual output of at least 1,900 missiles.
L3Harris (LHX) secured a contract from Lockheed Martin (LMT) worth more than $6 billion over seven years to scale up propulsion production for the THAAD missile-defense system.
The flurry of defense spending comes amid the ongoing U.S.-Iran conflict, which has strained American missile and air-defense inventories and added urgency to Pentagon stockpile efforts.
Retail sentiment on Stocktwits remained bullish for BA, bearish for LHX, and neutral for both ONDS and RTX heading into the weekend.
All four stocks remain in negative territory for the year, with RTX posting the smallest decline at roughly 1.2% and Boeing down approximately 11.9% year to date.
L3Harris has fallen about 21.7% so far this year, while Ondas has been the worst performer among the group, sliding roughly 35.4% since January.
