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Shares of Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT) and other U.S. defense contractors rocket higher Monday after Germany announced plans to increase its military spending, including an immediate €100B ($112B), in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Pre-market movers include KTOS +7.6%, NOC +5.7%, RTX +5.4%, GD +5.4%, LHX +4.9%, LMT +4.4%; European defense contractors including Rheinmetall (OTCPK:RNMBY) and Leonardo (OTCPK:FINMY) are rising in the 15-25% range in Europe.
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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's speech to Parliament on Sunday marked the country's most radical overhaul of its security and defense policy since 1945, stepping back from its entente with Moscow, siding with NATO, vowing to nearly double its military spending, and offering an immediate €100B defense spending package for weapons such as F-35 fighter planes and Israeli drones.
Lockheed Martin's "consistently increasing dividend distributions are an attractive part of the returns offered by the stock," Yiannis Zourmpanos writes in an analysis posted on Seeking Alpha.