Jamie Dimon dropped $24 million on a submarine facility at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. He called it the arsenal of democracy. Nobody asked him to do this. Nobody wanted him to do this. He did it anyway because CEOs need hobbies and apparently buying a boat factory beats golf.
The package bolsters American shipbuilding. That's the word they used. Bolsters. Like the industry was sagging and needed a pillow. We're talking submarines here. Nuclear vessels that cost $3 billion each. But sure, $24 million will fix everything. That's roughly what JPMorgan spends on coffee in a fiscal quarter.
Retail traders saw this headline and immediately searched "shipbuilding stocks." They found Huntington Ingalls. They found General Dynamics. They bought call options expiring Friday because a banker gave some money to Philadelphia. These are the same people who bought lumber futures after watching HGTV.
The Philadelphia Navy Yard hasn't built a warship since 1996. It's been thirty years. The cranes are rusted. The dry docks grow algae. But Dimon wrote a check and now we're back in business apparently. The submarines will be tremendous. The best submarines. They'll bolster themselves right into the Delaware River.
Here's what actually happens. JPMorgan gets a tax write-off. The Navy Yard gets a press release. Some politician cuts a ribbon. A facility opens that trains twelve people. The submarines get built in Connecticut like they always were. And retail traders hold bags full of defense contractor shares they bought at all-time highs because a CEO said the word arsenal.
Dimon manages $3.9 trillion in assets but decided submarines needed him most.
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