Defense Companies Rally After Trump Remarks

Modest moves for Wall Street overall on Thursday masked big gains underneath the surface, including for makers of weapons and other military equipment.

• The S&P 500 rose 0.53 points, or less than 0.1%, to 6,921.46, coming off its first loss in four days.
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 270.03 points, or 0.6%, to 49,266.11.
• The Nasdaq composite fell 104.26 points, or 0.4%, to 23,480.02.

Stocks of defense contractors rallied after Trump said he wants to increase US military spending to $1.5 trillion in 2027 from $901 billion in order to build the "Dream Military," the AP reports.

L3Harris Technologies jumped 5.2%, Lockheed Martin climbed 4.4%, and Northrop Grumman added 2.4%. They bounced back from losses the prior day, when Trump complained defense contractors were making military equipment too slowly. RTX came under particular criticism from Trump, and its stock lagged behind rivals. It inched up 0.8% after Trump said that it was the "slowest in increasing their volume." Trump signed an executive order Wednesday calling on the Pentagon to ensure future contracts with contractors contain a provision prohibiting their ability to buy back their own stock during a period of underperformance on US government contracts.

Another winner on Wall Street was Constellation Brands, which climbed 5.3% after the beer and wine company reported a better profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. They helped work against drops for several technology stocks that held back the overall market. Nvidia was the heaviest weight on the S&P 500 after dropping 2.2% and giving back some of its big gain of nearly 40% last year. Elsewhere, oil prices jumped to continue their zigzags since Trump ousted the leader of Venezuela last weekend. A barrel of benchmark US crude climbed 3.2% to $57.76. Brent crude, the international standard, rose 3.4% to settle at $61.99 per barrel.

Yields ticked higher in the bond market following mixed reports on the US economy. The number of US workers applying for unemployment benefits rose last week, a potential indicator of increasing layoffs, but by no more than economists expected. Other reports said US workers improved their productivity by more in the summer than economists expected, while the US trade deficit unexpectedly shrank in October.