US defense contractors and uranium sector gain 📈AeroVironment jumps 6%

Aerospace & defense stocks such as Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Raytheon, but also private companies such as AeroVironment (AVAV.US, military UAV producer) gain today, amid rising geopolitical tensions. There are also three other US market sectors which gain today, amid financial markets stress driven, by anticipated Iran missile attack to Israel.

• The one is Chinese stocks, such as JD.Com or PDD Holdings, which are supported by strong Hang Seng performance amid today session (almost 2.5% gain). The other one is uranium market companies such as Uranium Energy Corp, Centrus Energy or Denison Mines, each one gain between 3 to 4% today;
• The last one (and most obvious) are oil&gas companies such as Hess Corp, Occidental Petroleum or Halliburton, supported by almost 4% Brent oil rebound. Those companies gain today despite 0.5% rebound in USDIDX index, 7.4% rise in VIX and 1.5% drop in US tech sector.

Oil & gas companies, and defense stocks rise, while Nvidia and Apple drops almost 3%, with sell-off in semiconductor stocks. Source: xStation5

Source: xStation5

AeroVironment (AVAV.US) financial dashboard

As we can see below, the company valuation is very high, with PE ratio hitting 100 area, and forward PE at 62. Investors see drone maker as a leading, private beneficiary of UAV military revolution, but pay for its shares very high prices.

Source: XTB Research, Bloomberg Finance L.P

Source: XTB Research, Bloomberg Finance L.P