tags: [thesis/defence, analyst/me, potential/long] ...

This is a boat builder. OK, so not many boats have been deployed in Ukraine, but they may be in Taiwan.

I got thinking about defence contractors when I read this. Matt Stoler is bemoaning the corruption and anti-competitive aspects of the industry, so it feels wrong to direct some money to fund it, but Stoler does explain very clearly why the risk profile of a big defence contractor is very different to an ordinary sort of business.

I did some research, for a change. Not a lot but some! I got a list of promising defence stocks here, and went through them. Most have already taken off (check out Bombardier!), but HII seems to be a laggard.

I did think about BA and LDO.BVME and RR but I decided on HII as more of a pure play. I think it does more actual manufacturing than $RTX, and is less a financial engineering play, but it seems to have a pretty decent return on equity.