The 101 Companies To Monitor - Defense Tech Portfolio - Saudi-Qatar Boom
Under the Hood of Trump's Middle East Spree
Hi and welcome back for a Quant data driven analysis. [Full Disclaimer]
I've been tracking the defense tech sector closely since Trump's historic May 2025 visit to Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and if you've been following my analysis, you know I think this is the most significant development in defense investing since the post-9/11 spending boom. The scale of these deals is staggering—$1.8 trillion in total commitments—but what's more interesting is how the market is processing this information and where the real opportunities lie.
Let me walk you through how I'm modeling this sector and what it means for investors right now. Unlike most analysts who are focused on the headline numbers, I'm looking at how these agreements will reshape defense industry dynamics over multiple time horizons. There's a lot of noise in the market right now, but I think there are some clear signals if you know where to look.
So What’s Under the Hood of the Middle East Deal Spree
I've been watching defense deals for over a decade now, and what Trump just pulled off in the Gulf is genuinely mind-blowing. The numbers themselves are staggering—$600B from Saudi Arabia with $142B in defense gear, and another $1.2T from Qatar including $42B in military hardware. But the raw numbers don't tell the whole story.
What's fascinating here is the specificity. These aren't just handshake agreements or vague memoranda of understanding. The Saudis are buying THAAD batteries from Lockheed. The Qataris want KC-46 tankers from Boeing and are dropping $1B on RTX's counter-drone tech. I've combed through the details, and these are actual systems with actual price tags.
When you compare this to the Pentagon's entire budget for 2025—roughly $886B—you start to understand the scale. For some of these contractors, we're talking about multi-year backlogs that could fundamentally reshape their revenue outlooks. I'm not exaggerating when I say this could be a step-change for the entire sector.
But when I look at the market reaction so far, I don't think it fully reflects the long-term implications.
Portfolio Positioning - Who Really Benefits?
The traditional defense primes are obvious beneficiaries, but there's more nuance here. Let's look at the data:
Based on my analysis, I've identified three distinct segments that will benefit from these deals: