Best defense stocks

TransDigm makes aircraft components almost nobody else makes: proprietary parts flying on virtually every commercial and military aircraft, which only it can replace.

Leidos is the American government's largest technology-services contractor: Pentagon IT systems, airport scanners, veterans' healthcare and cyberdefense.

RTX (formerly Raytheon) is one of the world's largest aerospace and defense groups.

General Dynamics is one of the big U.S.

Northrop Grumman is the defense contractor of the most advanced stuff: the B-21 stealth bomber, Sentinel intercontinental missiles, satellites and missile defense.

Lockheed Martin is the world's largest defense contractor: it builds the F-35 fighter, missiles, helicopters and space systems, almost all for the U.S.

Textron is the mid-sized aviation conglomerate: Cessna business jets, Bell helicopters — winners of the program replacing the US Army's Black Hawk — and specialty vehicles.

L3Harris Technologies is America's sixth big defense contractor: military radios, electronic warfare, satellites and — after buying Aerojet — the rocket motors of American missiles.

Axon Enterprise is the company behind Taser weapons and police body cameras: the less-lethal weapon, the camera that records and the cloud (Evidence.com) where all police video lives.

Huntington Ingalls is the American navy's shipyard: the United States' only builder of nuclear aircraft carriers and one of its two submarine builders.