The US Needs More Missiles, Not Defense Stock Buybacks
More of these, fewer buybacks.
Photographer: Jose Sarmento Matos/Bloomberg
It was puzzling when President Donald Trump early last month went scorched earth on RTX Corp. in a series of social media posts, threatening to block the company’s ability to pay a dividend or repurchase shares if it didn’t step up investment to produce more missiles.
Setting aside the fact that’s there’s no legal way for the White House to prevent a company from returning cash to shareholders, RTX — whose Raytheon unit makes Tomahawk, Javelin, Stinger and other longer-range missiles — isn’t even the biggest spender among the large defense companies when it comes to paying dividends and buying back stock. That title belongs to Lockheed Martin Corp., which makes missiles as well as the F35 fighter jet and Black Hawk helicopters.