Hello folks!

Since I would like to receive many reactions to this topic, I will write my first post in German on this platform.

Yesterday I responded to a post about defense shares reacted. The post was about reducing the percentage of defense stocks in the portfolio. I responded as follows:

"In my opinion, you have to look at the bigger picture. Regardless of who is elected to office, there are already two major conflicts right on Europe's doorstep. Firstly in Ukraine, but also in Israel and the Middle East. The balance of power is shifting worldwide. China and Russia are once again gaining in importance. Terrorism in our regions, but also in Africa, is on the rise again. As a result, state leaders around the world are rearming their organizations. Just look at Mark Rutte's inaugural speech at NATO, full of explicit references to the expansion of military budgets."

After my comment, I did some more research on defense stocks.

I came across a Dutch article titled: "The 2 best defense stocks that keep growing because of the wars" by the Dutch investor Rabi Safi.

He wrote about Europe's willingness to significantly expand its military budgets and why this will benefit these two companies in particular (Thales and Rheinmetall) in particular would benefit. $HO (-0.05%) and $RHM (+0.92%)

Other positive reasons for these European companies were that Europe wants to become more militarily independent of the USA and that companies such as Thales and Rheinmetall are reporting record orders.

The author also mentions Mario Draghithe former Prime Minister of Italy and ex-President of the ECB, who is calling on European leaders to drastically increase military budgets.

More on the alarming reality of escalating conflicts near us: Russia recently announced plans to recruit more than 180,000 new soldiers, bringing the activebringing the total active armed forces to around 1.5 million.

In my further research on Rheinmetall I learned that their military exports have increased by 30 %. EBIT is also at its highest level ever. The CEO of Rheinmetall, Armin Papperger, expects the company to grow by over 2 billion annually over the next few years.

Finally, I would like to provide more insight into what the impact might be if Kamala Harris were elected to office.

Should this happen, the analyst of this article expects more turbulence and uncertainty in the world and thus on the markets. Other leaders may see them as too inexperienced and act more aggressively. However, one thing is certain: Europe will have to increase its military spending, especially in this case.

What do you think about this issue? Are you considering investing in defense stocks? If so, which companies do you have in mind?

Thank you very much for reading!