Trump Fires Rex Tillerson, Defense Stocks Rise

This article was originally published on ETFTrends.com.

It's no surprise that defense stocks are up after President Donald Trump fired Rex Tillerson and named CIA Mike Pompeo as the new Secretary of State.

Persistent tensions including how to deal with Nork Korea, Iran, and Charlottesville led to Trump firing Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, right before North Korea negotiations are set to kick off.

Trump has publicly criticized Tillerson in multiple situations.

Trump tweeted October 1: “I told Rex Tillerson, our wonderful Secretary of State, that he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man…”

A source also told CNN in July that Tillerson referred to Trump as a moron.

Although Trump said that Tillerson and him had been talking about his dismissal for a long time, Tillerson was caught off guard as to the reason behind being fired and was quoted several times earlier stating that he expected to be in the role through the 2018 year, calling his resignation “laughable” in December.

Trump has named CIA Mike Pompeo to transition into the role of Secretary of State immediately tweeting today, “Mike Pompeo, Director of the CIA, will become our new Secretary of State. He will do a fantastic job! Thank you to Rex Tillerson for his service! Gina Haspel will become the new Director of the CIA, and the first woman so chosen. Congratulations to all!”

It is hard to say what Rex Tillerson, former Exxon mobile CEO and Secretary of State will do next but the bigger question everyone seems to be wondering is how this will affect American foreign policy.

Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader tweeted today: “Whenever Secretary Tillerson’s successor goes into meetings with foreign leaders, his credibility will be diminished as someone who could be here today and gone tomorrow.”

Although we do not know how this is going to affect foreign relations, defense stocks are up with Pompeo now in office. The Street cited these climbs saying that, “Military communications and aviation system manufacturer Rockwell Collins Inc. (COL) was up 0.23 in premarket trading, while Northrop Grumman Corp. (NOC) gained 0.74%, Boeing Co. (BA) climbed 0.31%, Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT) rose 0.21%, and Raytheon Co. (RTN) was up 0.54%.”

With all the changes to the Trump administration, the market is sure to change along with it.