by Fred Fuld III
No one likes a war. But no one likes their stock portfolio to drop during a war. One possible way of offsetting any portfolio losses during wartime is through stocks involved in the defense industry.
Many investors are morally opposed to owning stocks in companies that benefit from the manufacture of weapons, and that’s understandable. If that’s you, then this article is probably not for you.
With the chance of Russia and Ukraine going to war in the near future (or if they haven’t already by the time you read this article), many of the defense and weapons companies have had their stocks move up in price.
For example, Lockheed Martin (LMT) has increased by 4% over the last month. General Dynamics (GD) has moved up from 203 a share to above 216 per share, an increase of 6.4%.
If you are looking to get exposure in this industry, the following United States based defense related stocks all have trailing price to earnings ratios of less than 25, forward price to earnings ratios of less than 25, and a price to earnings growth ratio of less than 2.
| Company | Symbol | Market Cap | P/E Ratio |
| AAR Corp. | AIR | 1.53B | 19 |
| Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings, Inc. | AJRD | 3.04B | 22 |
| Ducommun Incorporated | DCO | 552.99M | 17 |
| General Dynamics Corporation | GD | 59.81B | 19 |
| Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. | HII | 7.43B | 14 |
| Northrop Grumman Corporation | NOC | 62.06B | 9 |
| Textron Inc. | TXT | 15.13B | 21 |
| VirTra, Inc. | VTSI | 66.70M | 13 |
Disclosure: Author didn’t own any of the above at the time the article was written