Shares of Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin were under pressure after President Donald Trump raised the idea of large cuts to defense spending.

KEY POINTS

  • Defense stocks dropped sharply Thursday afternoon after President Donald Trump suggested the U.S. could massively cut defense spending.
  • Trump has sent mixed messages on military spending throughout his 2024 campaign and in the early days of his presidency.
    • jmcs@discuss.tchncs.de
      8·
      9 days ago

      Since the entire thing is contingent on China and Russia agreeing to half their defence budget too, the only thing to bet on is when it will be rescinded.

      • MrEff@lemmy.world
        153·
        9 days ago

        I was already going hard on AI stock, then day of inauguration when he sent the clear message of where tech companies stand in running this country I dumped ALL investment money into AI stock. If I have to live in this hellscape I better at least get to retire in it.

        • abrake@lemmy.world
          27·
          9 days ago

          My brother, have you heard about the benefits of diversification? If you want to retire at all, don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

    • Sc00ter@lemm.ee
      111·
      9 days ago

      I bought lockheed martin call options after the way the steel markets rebounded

      Edit: just checked volume on LMT. 2.4M today vs an average of 1.35M. Yeeeeeeah. Lot more buyers than usual today

      • oyo@lemm.ee
        4·
        8 days ago

        Yay for incredibly immoral investments. It’s disgusting how stock trading has been gamified and divorced from what it actually is, owning and supporting a company.

  • MetalMachine@feddit.nlEnglish
    382·
    9 days ago

    Would be a good thing if it would actually happen but we all know it won’t. Happy to be proven wrong however

    • MothmanDelorian@lemmy.world
      91·
      8 days ago

      The military is a jobs program. It’s paying for a ton of education and scientific research too. The first thing to go is going to be the scholarships not the guns.

      • pregnantwithrage@lemmy.worldEnglish
        273·
        9 days ago

        We spend more on our military than the next 9 countries combined not including our dark operations that we can’t account for in our budget already.

        We could cut our military in half and still be the best funded military in the world.

        That problem isn’t other nations, it’s the US and the military industrial complex

        • shastaxc@lemm.ee
          210·
          8 days ago

          But we also sell a lot of that military equipment to allies, making everyone stronger and recouping some of that spending at the same time.

          A quick search shows about $300b in sales last year with a spending budget about $800b. Of course, that depends on whether Ukraine survives to be able to repay its debt. But even if it can’t, all the military spending goes to US owned companies or citizens (our soldiers) which circulates in the domestic economy.

        • Sc00ter@lemm.ee
          116·
          8 days ago

          Have you ever read the unclassified annual threat assessment? There is an official report the intelligence comminity puts out every year detailing what other nations are doing around the world. And that’s just what theyre allowed to tell us.

          Ive read it, and if you look at what they detail out for chinas militarzation moderniation plans, theres not many reasons theyre doing what theyre doing unless to compete with the USA. Not to mention, chinas going faster than what originally was thought, and theyre becoming less reliant on other nations to do it. Thats just 1 nation. The usa has stuck its nose in too many peoples business that if they stop the arms race, there could be a lot of nations coming knocking. Weve painted ourselves into a corner (or at least have the perception of it).

          Edit: all that said, theres definitely ways to be more fiscally responsible with our military spending… just look at the f35 or the sentinel program

      • MetalMachine@feddit.nlEnglish
        93·
        8 days ago

        Considering how we’ve used that power in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Vietnam? Yes, its a good thing.

      • Pennomi@lemmy.worldEnglish
        281·
        9 days ago

        Crippling Canada’s military would be relatively easy. Holding the country would be absolutely impossible. It’s enormous geographically and occupation requires around 20 to 25 soldiers per thousand residents.

        We would have to dedicate a cool million soldiers for the 40 million residents of Canada. The US had only 450k-ish army members in 2023, so that would be difficult.

        • Atom@lemmy.world
          35·
          9 days ago

          Not to mention triggering Article 5 for the rest of NATO and shattering every defense agreement at once. You know, Putin’s wet dream.

          • Serinus@lemmy.world
            71·
            9 days ago

            If there’s going to be a world war, I’d prefer to not be on the side of Russia and China.

            • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
              111·
              9 days ago

              On the side of China? Their side is is sitting it all out and letting the U.S. and Russia devour themselves while picking up all the trade deals, currency holdings and eventually all the economical losses that will make it the strongest economy I’m the world by far. What do they have to do? Keep giving a nudge here or there, and watching egomaniacs devour their fellow citizens and the citizens eventually fight back to regain their freedoms. China wins every time Trump opens his mouth. But I don’t feel they are on the side at all, just happily enjoying the little puppeting they need to do.

              • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
                2·
                9 days ago

                The US is basically China now. Xi remains in power because he convinced the Chinese people that China needs a strong man to run the economy and protect them from the evil foreigners. Trump has done the same. They’re both corporate socialist countries now.

                There is one big difference and no, China is not “sitting things out.” A lot of the brouhaha over Greenland stems from China trying to use soft power to gain influence there. As they’ve done in Panama. Soft power means spending money and Trump’s too simple minded to understand the concept of spending money to gain influence. So US soft power doesn’t exist anymore which is why Trump can only make threats. It’s the only lever he has because he doesn’t know anything about the other levers. Of course his threats only further destroys US soft power, but Trump (along with most Americans) simply can’t understand the concept so they see that as good thing. Hell they’re trying to shut down USAID entirely, should be an indication they don’t understand it at all.

                China very much understands soft power and is using it everywhere. So that’s what we have to look forward to… Chinese soft power being met with threats from Donald Trump.

      • forrgott@lemm.ee
        521·
        9 days ago

        Lemme guess, it would only be a 3 day special military operation? 🙄

      • sepi@piefed.socialEnglish
        10·
        9 days ago

        Found Putin’s fedi account. 3 days to Ottawa, eh? Will work just like the last one, eh?

      • MasterBlaster@lemmy.world
        16·
        9 days ago

        Didn’t they and Britain burn down the white house in the war of 1812? They seemed pretty fierce in WWII. As an American, I suggest we not fuck around, lest we find out. I’m much happier with Canada as ally, thank you very much. From wikipedia:

        By the end of the war Canada had the world’s fourth largest air force,[6] and third largest navy.[7] The Canadian Merchant Navy completed over 25,000 voyages across the Atlantic,[8] 130,000 Allied pilots were trained in Canada in the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. On D-Day, 6 June 1944 the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division landed on “Juno” beach in Normandy, in conjunction with allied forces

      • kandoh@reddthat.com
        22·
        9 days ago

        We would probably surrender and then work diplomatically to regain independence or some other-outcome that would be better than blowing our neighbours up.

      • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
        111·
        9 days ago

        An occupation will. And the US has an extremely bad track record with occupations. That’s just a fact.

        You go on counting troops and getting boners when warplanes fly over sports arenas, while Canadians are figuring out how many strategic targets in the US are within drone range. This wouldn’t be an overseas war where you just need to tell someone in uniform some bullshit “thank you for your service” remark and that would be your only exposure to it. It would be a guerilla war on the North American continent, and your dear leader is gutting the FBI’s counter intelligence capabilities.

      • Hobbes_Dent@lemmy.world
        191·
        9 days ago

        You guys are so enamoured with Nazis you forget Vietnam.

        Previous losers willing to kill millions for a win.

    • Rentlar@lemmy.ca
      29·
      9 days ago

      Seems like the strategy is for us Canadians to feel so sorry enough with the state of affairs over there, that we’d join the states out of sympathy. Nice try.

    • adarza@lemmy.caEnglish
      8·
      9 days ago

      just last month lord diaper reiterated again that nato members should be spending five percent gdp on defense (up from the treaty’s two percent). he’s been whining about this one for like a decade now.

      now he wants to spend less than even that two percent.

      i think someone in the admin shorted some defense stocks, and this asinine statement is just to make a quick buck.

      • A_A@lemmy.world
        3·
        9 days ago

        … or is this money thing just a distraction ? … if they are going for fascism and totalitarianism … if they get it, they won’t care about money, once they have uncontested power. I say they are close to this point except for maybe the military who may oppose them.

  • Norgoroth@lemmy.world
    17·
    8 days ago

    Please keep fucking with the defense contractors, surely they won’t take any drastic measures against you

  • Pacattack57@lemmy.world
    8·
    8 days ago

    Good time to buy then. He already pledged to increase funding to Israel. Just need to research what company supplies the most weapons for them and invest there.

  • Opisek@lemmy.world
    91·
    8 days ago

    Infinitely many monkeys on infinitely many typewriters with infinitely much time.