Companies and Brands

War Stock Northrop Grumman Surges

Douglas A. McIntyre

Published: October 14, 2023 10:15 am

One of the effects of the battle between Hamas and Israel is that companies that make weapons have had a dramatic uptick in their stock prices. Among these, the shares of Northrop Grumman have jumped 15% in the last month. The shares of rival General Dynamics are up 11% during the same period.

Stocks of huge weapons companies have benefited from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The U.S. and Europe have sent Ukraine billions of dollars of weapons. Now, the U.S. has agreed to do something similar for Israel. To that point, Lloyd Austin, U.S. Secretary of Defense, said the U.S. planned to aid both nations.

The weapons supply to Israel has already begun to move quickly. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a post on X, formerly Twitter,  that the first plane carrying U.S. armaments has arrived in South Israel and “cooperation” between the U.S. and Israeli armies was “critical for Israel in times of war.”

Northrop Grumman’s business is divided into five pieces, each selling products to the military. It is called “air, cyber, land, sea, and space.” These include helicopters, jets, missile systems, personnel carriers, navigation, and radar systems.

In its most recent quarter, Northrop Grumman had revenue of $9.5 billion and operating cash flow of $919 million. Aeronautics systems contributed $2.6 billion. Defense Systems contributed $1.4 billion.

24/7 Wall St. recently published “The 25 Companies Making Billions Building The World’s Weapons.” Northrop Grumman ranked 4th behind only Boeing, Raytheon, and Lockheed Martin.