AI & Defense Boom: Time to Pick the Winners — SpaceX, Rheinmetall, Thales and Globex Mining

Rheinmetall and Thales: Two Examples of Growth Par Excellence

The correction is over, and the defense sector seems to be turning around again! Since 2024, the European defense industry has been undergoing a fundamental turning point, opening up two completely different, yet equally highly profitable, growth paths for investors. On the first track, German defense giant Rheinmetall is pursuing an aggressive, volume-driven expansion strategy. The company is benefiting more than almost any other from the massive increases in NATO countries' defense budgets and is filling its order books in record time. By expanding its ammunition factories and tank foundries, Rheinmetall is directly transforming political necessity into explosive revenue growth. At EUR 1,125, the stock is trading at just under 60% of its weighted 12-month price target of EUR 1,678. With 22 of the 26 covering analysts maintaining a "Buy" rating—that speaks volumes.

In contrast, on the second track is the French Thales Group, which is revolutionizing the market from a high-tech perspective. Thales is focused on digitizing the battlefield and integrating artificial intelligence into state-of-the-art radar, cyber, and satellite systems. While Rheinmetall delivers the physical firepower, Thales ensures the digital sovereignty and technological superiority of modern armed forces. This dual-track approach offers investors a choice between pure industrial scale and promising software innovation. The two companies complement each other perfectly and demonstrate that growth in the defense sector is driven by both steel and microchips. Despite the market's already strong performance, large-scale long-term government contracts continue to drive up the valuations of both industry leaders. Those looking to build a crisis-proof portfolio will find here two complementary pillars for a robust investment story in the defense sector, which is once again in high demand.

Globex Mining: The Executive Board Is Just Getting Started

Defense requires a lot of metals! As a result, the crisis-proof "Project Generator" model of Canadian licensing giant Globex Mining Enterprises, led by Jack Stoch, is taking the next step in the current market environment. After all, the fundamental market environment for this strategy could hardly be better. According to the International Energy Agency's (IEA) latest Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2026, geopolitical supply risks for critical raw materials have escalated dramatically, as the increasing expansion of export controls has transformed the vulnerability of Western supply chains from a theoretical concern into an immediate economic risk. The IEA study highlights that prices for strategic specialty metals—which are indispensable to the high-tech, aerospace, and defense industries—are rising sharply, while global mining investment is declining.

Against this backdrop, the debt-free company Globex operates as a low-risk "mineral property bank" that benefits from the unstoppable need to reshape the Western raw materials landscape. The financial exploration risk is shifted to financed partners, while Globex reaps valuable royalties and equity stakes. A look at the hard operational data from recent exploration announcements demonstrates just how effectively this leverage works in practice. The high-grade antimony deposits represent a genuine geopolitical asset in the portfolio, as antimony is among the most at-risk strategic metals, according to an IEA report. Here, the option partner Antimony Resources Corp. reported spectacular drilling results at the Bald Hill property in New Brunswick. In the "Main Zone", drill hole BH 26-14 intersected peak grades of 11.41% antimony over a length of 1.55 m, embedded within a broad mineralized zone averaging 2.78% antimony and 0.41 g/t gold over 11.3 m.

At the same time, the Duquesne West gold project in Québec, in which Globex holds a 50% interest, is making significant progress. Partner Emperor Metals Inc. is advancing a massive 20,000 m drill program there and, with drill hole DQ26-43, has intersected an outstanding 21.3 m grading 3.0 g/t gold at a vertical depth of just 45 m. With over 135,000 m already drilled on the project, the stated goal of presenting a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) is within reach. Rounding out this wealth of data is the adjacent Parbec Gold Project, which is strategically located right next to Agnico Eagle's massive, producing Malartic gold mine. The partner there, Renforth Resources Inc., reported excellent results from surface channel samples.

COO David Christie also recently highlighted the tremendous operational momentum of these partnerships at the International Investment Forum.

https://youtu.be/EW22N6jb9W4

With a portfolio that has now grown to 272 diversified assets, spanning precious metals and critical industrial metals for the AI revolution, management is demonstrating unparalleled asset density. The executive board is capitalizing perfectly on escalating geopolitical supply concerns and is noticeably accelerating the pace of expansion. With Globex, investors gain highly efficient, inflation-protected exposure to gold and critical metals, while the management team appears to be just warming up for the emerging commodities supercycle.

SpaceX: The Miraculous Multiplication of Money

It is now pointless to look at SpaceX's share price. Reportedly oversubscribed by a factor of 8, Elon Musk's new "Vision Machine" went public at a price of around USD 135. In the very first week, it hit a striking high of USD 225 with a 67% gain (Fibonacci says hello). But that is when the short sellers woke up and sent the price back down to USD 105. Now the "mad rush" appears to be starting all over again, as the company's founder and 40% major shareholder promises his hundreds of thousands of small shareholders that he will make SpaceX the most valuable company in the world within 5 years. From today's perspective, that would require "only" a threefold increase in the share price. The IPO has already secured its place in the record books, and even with a valuation that currently seems astronomical at around USD 1.8 trillion, it is already trading at 40 times estimated annual revenue for 2026. Elon seems to be presenting a perfect remake of the "Tesla" playbook, making short sellers sweat as they cling to a few fundamental price targets ranging from USD 35 to USD 50. In any case, the expert consensus on the LSEG Refinitiv platform is sounding the charge and setting the 12-month target at USD 230. Have we not been there before? Casino Royale for the pros of highly dynamic securities investing!

**The capital markets are struggling to determine the right valuations. While the S&P 500 is slowly heading toward a 2026 Shiller P/E ratio of 50 due to the heavy weighting of high-tech stocks, experts point out that the historical average once stood at 17.5. But who really cares? For strategic investors, it is all about the mix. One thing is important: a representative from the strategic metals sector, such as Globex Mining, should not be missing — as 2026 has demonstrated impressively.