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Why This Defense ETF Could Keep Rallying as the Iran Conflict Escalates

Authored by Jordan Chussler. Published: 3/10/2026.

Key Points

Military operations are costing U.S. taxpayers nearly $1 billion per day, with incidents like the accidental downing of three U.S. F-15s by Kuwaiti friendly fire adding hundreds of millions.
In the first week of the war with Iran, the U.S. fired more than 800 Patriot interceptor missiles, totaling at least $3.2 billion in munition costs.
The iShares U.S. Aerospace & Defense ETF has been outperforming the S&P 500, and bolstered by ongoing war costs, is likely to continue doing so.
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Beyond operations, unforeseen costs—like last week's friendly-fire incident in which Kuwait shot down three U.S. F-15s—have added to those woes. Replacement costs for each of those U.S. Air Force jets are estimated at roughly $100 million.

Meanwhile, on March 3, just days after the conflict began, President Donald Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social, that the United States has a “virtually unlimited supply” of weapons, adding in a linked post that “Wars can be fought ‘forever’.”

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As a result, stocks operating in the aerospace and defense industry are getting a boost.

As a subsector of the industrials sector, government contractors have helped push that cohort to a year-to-date (YTD) gain of 9.55%, good for fourth among the S&P 500’s 11 sectors.

That strong YTD performance in 2026 follows a 19.40% gain in 2025. For shareholders of the iShares U.S. Aerospace & Defense ETF (BATS: ITA)—formerly the iShares Dow Jones U.S. Aerospace & Defense Index Fund—the ongoing conflict in the Middle East could mean further gains.

The World’s Largest Aerospace and Defense ETF

The ITA has nearly $11 billion in market capitalization and more than $16 billion in assets under management, making it the world’s largest aerospace and defense ETF.

The ETF seeks to mirror the investment results of the Dow Jones U.S. Select Aerospace & Defense Index, which measures the performance of the aerospace and defense segment of the U.S. equity market.

That index includes companies that manufacture, assemble, and distribute military aircraft and aircraft parts, radar equipment, drones and counter-drone technology, as well as other weapons and equipment for the defense industry.

So far this year, the fund has gained nearly 8% compared to the broad S&P 500’s loss of 2.22%. Much of that interest is directly attributable to the defense contractors that make up the ITA’s holdings, which, for a number of reasons, have become household names over the past few decades.

A Basket of Premier Defense Contractors

The fund offers investors a basket of aerospace and defense stocks that includes, by weighting, GE Aerospace (NYSE: GE); RTX (NYSE: RTX), formerly Raytheon; Boeing (NYSE: BA); Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT); Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC); L3Harris Technologies (NYSE: LHX); and General Dynamics (NYSE: GD) among its more than 41 holdings.

Individually, those stocks have had mixed YTD performances. GE, for instance, is down 1.28% YTD while RTX has gained 11.75% YTD. Boeing is down more than 2% and Lockheed Martin is up over 35%. Overall, outperformance has outweighed underperformance, and lagging names could catch up if the conflict with Iran continues.

Take, for instance, the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) interceptor missiles produced by Lockheed Martin. Each missile costs about $4 million. In the first week of hostilities alone, the United States reportedly fired more than 800 Patriot interceptors, a bill of roughly $3.2 billion.

Meanwhile, RTX produces the guidance systems and other variants of the Patriot missile, such as the GEM-T. In total, a full Patriot battery system—including launchers, radar, and a control station—costs over $1 billion, with the missiles alone accounting for approximately $690 million of that amount.

In terms of industry exposure, nearly 92% of the ETF directly aligns with aerospace and defense, while 3.4% of the fund is in metals and mining—an industry that has seen outsized benefits since rare earth elements became a national security priority under Trump.

The companies that compose the ITA include some of the leading contract recipients for the U.S. federal government. Lockheed Martin, for example, received more than $65 billion in awards from the federal government last year.

At present, the U.S. Department of Defense has over $48 billion in obligations to Lockheed Martin, of which more than 49% is earmarked for the Department of the Navy, nearly 24% for the U.S. Army, more than 20% for the Air Force, and nearly 3% for the Missile Defense Agency.

How Wall Street Feels About the ITA

Based on 395 analyst ratings issued over the past 12 months covering 24 companies in the ITA’s holdings, the fund receives a Moderate Buy rating.

Fueled by the Trump administration’s hawkish foreign policies, the ITA has been particularly attractive to institutional investors, with institutions adding more than $3 billion over the past 12 months compared to outflows of just over $613 million.

Why Mastercard and Visa Are the Definition of Forever Stocks

Authored by Jordan Chussler. Published: 3/14/2026.

Key Points

The financials sector has lagged the S&P 500 this year, but two payment processing giants continue to deliver the kind of margins and earnings consistency that define long-term holdings.
Despite recent sector-wide struggles, Visa and Mastercard function as a veritable duopoly, controlling over 90% of payments outside of China.
Visa hasn't missed on earnings in 10 years, while Mastercard has secured 21 consecutive quarterly beats.
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After finishing the past two years with an average annual gain of nearly 23%, the financials sector has struggled this year. With a year-to-date loss of around 9%, the cohort ranks last among the S&P 500's 11 sectors.

Zooming out, many companies in the sector have nonetheless proven to be core holdings for buy-and-hold investors.

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With high-quality growth stocks increasingly difficult to identify, two legacy firms in the global payment processing and digital payments markets continue to deliver profit margins and business characteristics that qualify them as "forever" stocks.

Why Digital Payment Processors Make Good Forever Stocks

These companies have historically enjoyed higher profit margins than many other industries, owing to high-volume demand, extensive automation, and technology-driven business models that keep marginal costs per transaction low.

The industry also appears poised for sustained growth. According to Grand View Research, the global payment processing solutions market, valued at nearly $48 billion in 2022, is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.5% through 2030, reaching nearly $140 billion. Grand View also forecasts the digital payment market, valued at more than $114 billion in 2024, will expand at a 21.4% CAGR through 2030 to more than $361 billion.

That combination of growth and attractive margins might suggest rising competition, but two dominant incumbents still operate in a de facto duopoly, handling more than 90% of credit-card and digital payments processed outside China. With roots dating back to the mid-20th century, these firms own critical payment infrastructure, which helps them set fees, limit competition and sustain strong margins.

While companies such as Block (NYSE: XYZ) — with its Cash App — and PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL) — with Venmo — aim to disrupt the space, two incumbents remain the clearest examples of durable, long-term payment plays.

Mastercard: The $450 Billion Company Focusing on Tech Integration

Since Michael Miebach became CEO of Mastercard (NYSE: MA) in 2021, management has prioritized expanding tech platforms, supporting cross-border commerce, and developing services that help clients reduce fraud, streamline payment flows and extract insights from payment data.

Those efforts helped Mastercard post record revenue and net income in 2025. Revenue of nearly $33 billion represented a year-over-year increase of more than 16%, while net income of nearly $15 billion rose by a similar margin.

That profitability was driven largely by a reported 100% gross margin in 2025 — enabled by tech integrations and minimal cost of goods sold — so quarterly gross profit essentially matched net revenue.

For investors, that has translated into consistent earnings performance. Mastercard hasn't missed an earnings estimate since Q3 2020 and has recorded 21 consecutive quarterly earnings beats.

Most recently, the company reported Q4 2025 EPS of $4.76, a nearly 25% year-over-year increase. Analysts expect Mastercard's earnings to rise roughly 17% in the year ahead, from $15.91 to $18.61 per share.

Mastercard has also been embracing broader fintech trends, shifting from a traditional payments network toward an AI-driven, software-focused enterprise that emphasizes enhanced security, simplified B2B transactions with virtual cards, and agentic AI tools.

Additionally, Mastercard pays a dividend. While the yield is modest (about 0.69%), the company has raised its payout for 13 consecutive years, maintains a sustainable payout ratio (around 21.07%), and shows an annualized five-year dividend growth rate near 13.70%.

Visa: Evolving and Adapting Since 1958

Visa (NYSE: V) operates a network-based model that enables partner banks and financial institutions to issue branded payment products while Visa focuses on infrastructure, standards and technology integration.

Like Mastercard, Visa is integrating fintech capabilities — including AI-driven solutions and blockchain-based settlement — with the aim of moving from primarily card-based transactions to more flexible, digital-first experiences by 2026.

That strategy helped Visa report record revenue and net income in 2025, with revenue of about $40 billion (an 11% year-over-year increase) and net income near $20 billion.

Visa's consistency is notable: it hasn't missed an earnings estimate in the past 10 years. During that stretch the company met analyst expectations twice and beat EPS estimates 38 times.

Much of Visa's resilience stems from its strong margins — roughly an 83% gross profit margin in 2025, in line with its 10-year average.

Like its peer, Visa also pays a modest dividend (currently about 0.87%). Visa's payout ratio is a healthy ~25.14%, its annualized five-year dividend growth rate is roughly 14.48%, and the company has increased its payout for 17 consecutive years.

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