If you just looked at the headlines, you’d think this is the absolute worst time to invest in anything related to nuclear power.
After all, Big Media has been giving us a steady diet of stories about the benefit to the planet found in green energy.
Don’t get me wrong. I have recommended solar and related stocks in the past. The issue confronting us is that right now we don’t have nearly enough large, industrial-grade storage systems for wind or solar power.
Which brings me back around to a company that is set to double its stock, not by avoiding nuclear power, but by gladly embracing it.
That’s a good thing because right now as we speak roughly 55 nuclear power plants are being built around the world. And just the equipment part of the sector is worth $67.2 billion.
We’ve just celebrated the one-year anniversary of one of the largest mergers ever to hit the defense industry.
As someone who has been around military technology since high school, I was and remain a big fan of this move.
And it’s not just because the combined firm had first-quarter sales that were up by a stunning 168%, though I believe it does prove the value of this move.
The merger created a firm with more than $16 billion in yearly sales and a $35 billion market cap.
Along the way, the linkup cemented the firm status’s an electronics-centric leader with a strong moat and that’s in a field vital to America’s security.
Mordor Intelligence projects the sector where this firm excels is going to grow 14% between now and 2024. And that’s on top of a current base worth $124 billion.
Over the past five years, the stock has nearly doubled the overall market’s return.
Imagine a 4-minute commute from Washington, DC to New York, a 230-mile journey.
Or, how about an hour’s journey between New York City and Zurich, Switzerland?
That’s how long it would take if you could travel at Mach 5, which is about 3,836 mph.
And this isn’t science-fiction; it’s science now!
It’s what has become known as hypersonic speed. And while it may not be available to commuters or vacationers – yet – it’s a top priority of US, Chinese, and Russian defense companies.
Make no mistake. Hypersonic technology is vital for America’s security. It also means big bucks for savvy tech investors.
In fact, I have identified a leader in this hot new field that is selling at a roughly 35% discount from the S&P 500.
Even better, it has a track record of beating that benchmark by 160%.
Ever since the market sold off back on February 19, I have given you a steady stream of tech winners who should at least be on your watchlist.
Here’s the thing. Most of those companies have been larger firms with stocks that have relatively high sticker prices.
And for good reason. When you’re in a bear market, you can often find big discounts on household names like Apple Inc. (AAPL).
But I would be remiss if I didn’t at least let you know from time to time about low priced small caps targeting Trump’s more than $700 billion defense budget.
Remember, what we want are well-run firms in multibillion-dollar markets with a lot of upside.
That’s just the set up I see in play for a tiny defense electronics firm that supplies the U.S. military with robust radar systems.
Just a little more than three months ago, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of one of the great technical achievements in the history of the human race.
It was on July 20, 1969 that Neil Armstrong became the first person to set foot on the moon.
And what could be a better way to celebrate that accomplishment than to follow that up with another lunar mission?
No, we’re not going to land there tomorrow or even next year for that matter. Fact is, the U.S. probably won’t return to the moon for another decade.
So, why am I celebrating already? Fair question. The answer: a storied space pioneer just received a huge order from NASA to build up to 12 Orion spacecraft.
Known as Artemis, the new lunar program could mean at least $4.6 billion in revenue for this aerospace leader, and massive payouts for you.
The Pentagon just unveiled a new platform it calls Pathfinder.
No, it’s not a new robotic weapons system… or a new high-tech tank… or even an innovative mapping system.
Instead, this is a program that addresses the Pentagon as a huge bureaucracy, instead of as a fighting force.
Pathfinder is a new program to migrate tons of data, some of it quite sensitive, to the cloud. And the U.S. Department of Defense is contracting with cloud leader Amazon Web Services in a deal that could eventually be worth billions to make it happen.
As you might imagine in this era of cyberattacks, not everyone in Washington is on board with the massive data migration.
They worry that the Pentagon is exposing itself to hackers who may come from China, North Korea, or Russia. After all, black-hat teams tied to those three nations attempt to penetrate our military networks on an almost hourly basis.
Here’s the thing. There’s a relatively new approach out there that offers far more security, not to mention a permanent record of every single transaction involving a military budget totaling more than $750 billion.
It’s a system I call the Milblock.
In a moment, I’ll explain just what I’m talking about.
My childhood family dinner conversations were a bit different than most folks’.
Sure, we talked about school, sports, neighborhood gossip, movies – normal stuff. But we also talked about military contractors, weapons systems, and defense budgets.
That’s because my father was the award-winning senior military editor for Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine, the bible of that industry. And that gave me a front-row seat for the military de-escalations and escalations of the 1970s and 1980s.
Therefore, when last year President Donald Trump called for raising the fiscal 2018 defense budget by 10%, I took notice.
Without doing the math – thanks to those long-ago family dinners – I knew immediately that this would represent the biggest defense budget increase since the Ronald Reagan years.
But that’s just trivia. Here’s the “meat”…
President Trump wants more airplanes, tanks, and troops as well as technology for missile defense and a wide range of other platforms. And that means 2018 is stacking up to be the best year for the defense industry – and its investors – since 1981.
That gives us a target-rich profit opportunity for this New Year.
That’s because, even beyond President Trump’s historic budget increase, I see multiple catalysts – “triggers” – that will power the defense industry to continued new highs.
So today, let’s look at those 2018 defense catalysts.
On Aug. 30, off the coast of Hawaii, sailors aboard the USS John Paul Jones tracked, intercepted, and shot down a medium-range ballistic missile.
It was a milestone in our nation’s defense system.
Doing so put North Korea and Kim Jong-un on notice that we can shoot down their missiles before those missiles reach the U.S. mainland or one of our Asian-Pacific allies.
And it’s about time.
North Korea’s ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs have developed much, much faster than the Pentagon predicted. And that has created a threat that has jump-started our need for advanced missile defense technologies – and spending on them.
Indeed, missile defense technology is so critical to the United States right now that it was a big driver behind Northrop Grumman Corp. (NYSE: NOC)’s just announced plan to acquire Orbital ATK Inc. (NSE: OA) for $9.2 billion.
Orbital specializes in the missile defense technology that we so badly need right now.
And so the deal reaffirms our belief that Northrop is the best of the Big Defense plays out there. Northrop has soared nearly 46% since our first recommendation in April 2016 – including a 10% gain since the Sept. 17 announcement of the Orbital deal.
Today I want to go in-depth on why that Orbital deal reinforces our “case” for Northrop.
And I want to show you how you can take a ride on all the defense industry M&A deals we’ll be seeing over the next few years.
This single investment gained just 1.75% in 2015 – but 19% in 2016.
President Donald Trump has been searching for a way to punish China for its wildly unfair trade practices.
And he may have just found something in… solar panels. One week ago, a federal trade panel declared that Chinese imports of solar panels are hurting American manufacturers.
Ever since, you can bet that the White House has been mulling tariffs.
That’s because, instead of investing in Chinese importers, we’re focusing on internal growth in the world’s most populous nation – especially all those people’s quickening migration to the web.
Back in August we took a close look at the Emerging Markets Internet & Ecommerce ETF (NYSE Arca: EMQQ) as a bunker against tariffs.
And today I’ve got another one.
It’s great play on a $47 trillion Chinese tech market.
This market represents one of the fastest-growing global tech trends on Earth, according to new data from iResearch. This segment barely existed a decade ago but will grow by 422% between 2016 and 2020.
So let’s look at that data – and at a way to get in on this trend with a stock that’s already beaten the market by ninefold so far this year.
But maybe you’re still concerned about the wisdom of investing in a nation that President Trump has in his economic crosshairs.
We’ve talked about some truly revolutionary tech developments rocking the entire defense sector right now, like laser weapons, advanced drones, helicopters, battlefield AI, and global awareness.
It all sounds very sci-fi, but it’s happening now (and making us some serious money).
I want to talk about something a little less flashy but perhaps even more important to keeping our armed forces effective when boots are on the ground.
It’s not headline-grabbing, and you certainly couldn’t call it “state of the art.” In fact, at less than $5 billion, it’s a relatively small, overlooked niche in one of the world’s most lucrative, high-profile sectors.
That’s just one of the reasons why I love it right now.
As you might imagine in this era of cyberattacks, not everyone in Washington is on board with the massive data migration. 
Doing so put North Korea and Kim Jong-un on notice that we can shoot down their missiles before those missiles reach the U.S. mainland or one of our Asian-Pacific allies.