KTOS - NATO to expand as Finland gets last approval to join the alliance

2023-03-31 04:41:19 ET

Finland is one step closer to becoming a NATO member after Turkey's parliament approved a bill to expand the military alliance. It was the last vote the country needed to join the 30-nation group after Hungary's legislature gave its approval earlier this week.

"Soon both Finland and Sweden will be members, meaning that President Putin is getting the exact opposite of what he wanted," NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg declared. "He wanted less NATO. He is getting more NATO."

Stocks like Lockheed Martin ( NYSE: LMT ) and Northrop Grumman ( NYSE: NOC ) have risen about 20% since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, but many other defense players haven't held their gains.

All current 30 NATO nations have also agreed to spend at least 2% of their GDPs on defense by 2025, though only a third of those members have met the threshold. Wells Fargo explores how cuts in federal spending could hit defense stocks

Related: Aerojet Rocketdyne ( AJRD ), AeroVironment ( AVAV ), Boeing ( BA ), General Dynamics ( GD ), Huntington Ingalls Industries ( HII ), Kratos ( KTOS ), L3Harris Technologies ( LHX ), Leidos ( LDOS ), Northrop Grumman ( NOC ), Raytheon ( RTX ) and Textron ( TXT ).

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