NO SHOW JOBS 🤌

Friday, April 17, 2026 | 9:00 AM PST

Your daily edge. The family eats first.

Market Snapshot

📊 Live Quotes — S&P Crushes 7,100. Dow Rips 2.28%.

Dow

49,685

▲ 2.28%

S&P 500

7,135

▲ 1.33%

Nasdaq

24,461

▲ 1.49%

$SOXX

$413.46

▲ 1.85%

$TSM

$366.26

▲ 0.80%

$PLTR

$147.18

▲ 3.10%

$ONDS

$10.30

▲ 0.98%

$KTOS

$71.68

▼ 3.68%

Market Tone: Monster rally. Dow up 2.28%, S&P printing 7,135 (fresh all-time high), Nasdaq +1.49%. Four days ago we said the market wanted to go higher. Today the S&P is up over 300 points from Monday's close at 6,817. The thesis didn't just play out. It ripped. PLTR up 3.10% to $147.18 on Aevex IPO day as the defense tech narrative catches fire. SOXX +1.85% confirming semis are leading the rally. TSM recovering from yesterday's sell-the-news dip. ONDS green on continued contract momentum. KTOS down 3.68% on profit-taking after a strong run, which is the contrarian entry point the family watches for. And today, a defense tech company goes public for the first time in 2026. The sector just got its coming-out party.

Bada Bing 🎯

Aevex IPOs Today. Anduril Is Worth $60 Billion. The Defense Tech Boom Is Real.

Today, a defense tech company called Aevex starts trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker $AVEX. The IPO prices between $18 and $21 per share, valuing the company at roughly $2.4 billion. Goldman Sachs, BofA Securities, Jefferies, and JPMorgan are underwriting. The company makes unmanned aircraft systems, loitering munitions, and unmanned surface vehicles for the US military. It had $432.9 million in revenue last year with a funded backlog of $503 million and a 99% win rate on contract recompetes.

Most people will see this IPO and shrug. Another drone company going public. Cool.

The family sees something different. The family sees a pattern.

In 2025, Voyager Technologies IPO'd. Firefly Aerospace IPO'd. York Space Systems closed its IPO in January 2026. Now Aevex. SpaceX's IPO is looming. And in the private markets, Anduril just raised $4 billion at a $60 billion valuation from Andreessen Horowitz and Thrive Capital.

That is not random. That is an industry going public because the capital markets have decided defense tech is no longer a niche. It is an investable sector with real revenue, real contracts, and real compounding cash flows.

Here's why this is happening now.

The Pentagon changed the way it buys. In March 2026, the US Army consolidated roughly 120 separate Anduril contracts into a single 10-year enterprise agreement worth up to $20 billion. One month earlier, the Army did the same thing with Palantir: 75 contracts consolidated into a single $10 billion enterprise deal over 10 years. That's $30 billion in enterprise contracts awarded to two companies that didn't exist 10 years ago.

$30B

Combined enterprise contract value awarded to Anduril ($20B) and Palantir ($10B) by the US Army. Both are 10-year deals. Both went to companies founded in the 2010s by former Palantir engineers and Silicon Valley founders. Not Lockheed. Not Raytheon. The old guard is getting flanked.

The modern battlefield is defined by software, not steel. The Army's own CTO said it explicitly: "To maintain our advantage, we must be able to acquire and deploy software capabilities with speed and efficiency." Enterprise contracts are the mechanism. Anduril's Lattice operating system and Palantir's AIP are the platforms. And the trickle-down effects are massive.

Every mission those platforms run needs hardware. Drones. Autonomous vehicles. Sensors. Communications relay. That's where the family's positions come in.

$PLTR Palantir Technologies. The godfather of defense AI. $10 billion enterprise Army contract. Strategic consortium partner with Anduril on the $185 billion Golden Dome missile shield project. Market cap above $300 billion. The stock is up +3.10% today to $147.18. Last Monday Michael Burry called it a bubble. The stock has ripped nearly 10% since then. PLTR is not a software company anymore. It is a defense infrastructure platform.

$KTOS Kratos Defense and Security Solutions. The drone and autonomous systems play the family has been watching. Kratos builds the XQ-58 Valkyrie stealth drone that Anduril's subsidiary already integrates with. As the Army moves to autonomous combat systems under these enterprise contracts, KTOS sits at the intersection of hardware manufacturing and AI-enabled flight. Down 3.68% today to $71.68 on profit-taking after a strong run. Every Anduril contract that requires physical unmanned systems creates demand for the companies that actually build them. The pullback is the entry.

$ONDS Ondas Holdings. This one moved fast. In the last 60 days, Ondas partnered with Palantir to layer AI across its drone and robot platforms, merged with Mistral (a defense prime contractor with over $1 billion in existing War Dept contracts), and landed a $50 million+ border demining program. First-quarter 2026 revenue guidance is $38-40 million, an 820% year-over-year jump. Full-year 2026 revenue guidance raised to $375 million, nearly 7x the 2025 figure. Trading at $10.30 today. This is the smallest and most speculative name the family owns in defense tech, but the velocity of contract wins and the Palantir integration make it the highest-leverage play in the sector.

And then there's the one you can't buy yet. Anduril is still private at a $60 billion valuation. $2 billion in revenue last year. Arsenal-1, a 5 million square foot autonomous weapons manufacturing complex in Ohio, begins production in July 2026. A solid rocket motor facility in Mississippi producing 6,000 tactical motors annually. An R&D center in the UAE. Strategic partnership with OpenAI. Co-founded by the guy who built Oculus VR. When this company eventually IPOs, it will be the most important defense listing since Palantir. Until then, the publicly traded ecosystem around it (PLTR, KTOS, ONDS, and now AVEX) is where the family gets exposure.

The defense tech sector is no longer a bet on geopolitics. It's a bet on a structural change in how the world's largest military buys technology. The Pentagon is replacing 50 years of cost-plus contracting with fixed-price enterprise deals awarded to software-native companies. Every year that shift continues, the Anduril/Palantir ecosystem grows, the old guard loses share, and the publicly traded names adjacent to that ecosystem compound.

Aevex IPOs today. The next one is already filing. And the one after that. Defense tech is going public because the market has decided it's real.

The family was here first. 🤌

📺 Watch today's breakdown on TikTok: tiktok.com/@noshowjobs

The Skim

Fact → So What → $Ticker

Aevex IPOs Today on NYSE Under $AVEX. Defense Tech's IPO Wave Continues.

Aevex prices at $18-21/share, $2.4B valuation, raising up to $336M. Goldman, BofA, Jefferies, JPMorgan underwriting. $432.9M in 2025 revenue (+10% YoY), $503M funded backlog, 99% win rate on contract recompetes. Follows Voyager Technologies, Firefly Aerospace, and York Space Systems IPOs. FTI Strategic Communications noted in February 2026 that "Defense Tech is primed for the public markets." SpaceX and Anduril IPOs loom as the sector's ultimate catalysts.

S&P Crushes 7,135. Monday's "Markets Want to Go Higher" Thesis Fully Validated.

Monday the S&P was at 6,817. Today it's at 7,135. That's over 300 points in four trading days. The Dow is ripping +2.28%. Nasdaq +1.49%. Semis leading with SOXX +1.85%. TSMC recovering after yesterday's sell-the-news dip, back up 0.80% to $366.26. The "markets want to go higher" thesis from Monday's Bada Bing didn't just play out. It exploded. The bears who were waiting for "more clarity" watched the move happen without them. Exactly as predicted.

Ondas: 820% Revenue Jump, Palantir Partnership, $1B in War Dept Contracts.

$ONDS merged with Mistral for $175M, gaining prime contractor access to over $1B in existing War Dept contracts. Palantir AI integration across drone and robot platforms. $50M+ border demining contract. Q1 2026 revenue guidance $38-40M (820% YoY growth). Full-year 2026 raised to $375M, nearly 7x 2025. Trading at $10.30 today. Smallest and most speculative name the family owns in defense, but the velocity of contract wins is unlike anything else in the sector.

Iran Ceasefire Expires Monday. Oil and Defense Names on Watch.

The two-week Iran ceasefire expires April 21, this Monday. Pakistan's army chief met in Tehran with Iran's foreign minister this week. US Treasury Secretary Bessent warned of expanded secondary sanctions. Oil elevated. The market is pricing cautious optimism but not certainty. If the ceasefire extends, oil pulls back and risk-on accelerates. If it collapses, defense names rip harder and oil spikes. Either outcome has a trade. The family is watching both sides of the tape heading into the weekend.

Waste Management 🗑️

Everyone Sleeping on Defense Tech Is Making the Same Mistake They Made With AI in 2022.

In 2022, most generalist investors dismissed AI as a toy. "ChatGPT is fun but it won't make money." "Enterprise adoption is years away." "The hype is ahead of the fundamentals." Fourteen months later, NVIDIA had tripled and the entire AI infrastructure stack was running.

Defense tech is at the same inflection point right now.

The dismissal sounds the same. "Defense is boring." "Government contracts move too slowly." "The margins are bad." "It's all cost-plus." "Regulation will cap returns." Every one of those takes is based on the defense industry of 2015, not the defense industry of 2026.

Here's what changed. The Pentagon adopted Silicon Valley's procurement model. Instead of 7-year RFP cycles with Lockheed and Raytheon, the Army is now writing 10-year enterprise deals with Anduril and Palantir. Fixed prices. Pre-negotiated terms. Volume discounts. Buy-when-needed flexibility. That is how Amazon buys cloud infrastructure. That is how Google buys compute. The US military is now buying defense technology the same way.

The result is a structural shift in who wins contracts and how fast they scale. Anduril went from zero to $2 billion in revenue and a $60 billion valuation in eight years. Palantir went from a niche analytics vendor to a $300 billion defense AI platform. Ondas went from a small drone company to a prime contractor with $375 million in guided 2026 revenue. These aren't outliers. They are the new normal.

The old guard knows it. Lockheed, Northrop, and RTX are all scrambling to partner with software-native companies because they can't build the platforms themselves. The Army's CTO said the quiet part out loud: "The modern battlefield is increasingly defined by software." Every year that statement gets more true, the Anduril/Palantir ecosystem gains share, and the publicly traded names adjacent to it compound.

Palantir exec Shyam Sankar and Anduril co-founder Trae Stephens both warned at the Hill and Valley Forum that the US has just 8 days of munitions stockpiled for a potential conflict with China. Stephens said the US hasn't built at-scale manufacturing capacity from scratch this century outside of Tesla. Anduril opened Arsenal-1 in Columbus, Ohio this week to start fixing that. But even unlimited funding would take 18 months to get the country on track.

That's the thesis. Defense spending isn't cyclical anymore. It's existential. And the companies building the platforms the Pentagon actually wants to buy are not the ones Wall Street has been covering for 50 years. They're the ones the family has been watching.

Aevex IPOs today. SpaceX IPO is coming. Anduril IPO is a matter of when, not if. The defense tech sector is going public because the capital markets have decided it's investable. The family was here before the consensus caught up.

The bears will keep sleeping. The family keeps eating.

The Family Ledger 📖

One Prediction. Timestamped. Immutable.

New Prediction

Defense tech becomes one of the top three investable sector themes alongside AI infrastructure and peptide therapeutics for the remainder of 2026. $PLTR trades above $160 within 90 days on continued enterprise contract momentum and Golden Dome integration news. $KTOS trades above its 52-week high within 120 days as autonomous combat drone demand accelerates under Army enterprise contracts. $ONDS, the most speculative name the family owns, delivers at least one quarter of $80M+ revenue within the next two reporting cycles, validating the Mistral merger and Palantir integration thesis. $AVEX (Aevex, IPO today) trades above $25 within 60 days if the IPO prices cleanly and the defense tech narrative holds.

⚠️ Not investment advice. Do your own research. The family has positions in names mentioned.

🤖 Powered by AI. Edited by The Consigliere.

📧 Forward this to one trader you know. That's how the family grows. 🤌

noshowjobs.net · @NoShowJobs