Companies Benefiting From Trump: Defense Contractors, Big Banks And Polluters See Share Prices React To Budget Release

Following the release of President Donald Trump’s fiscal year 2018 budget proposal Thursday, markets exhibited mixed reactions, with megabanks seeing immediate spikes in the hours after the morning release of the plan, large corporate sources of pollution winning modest gains and defense companies nosediving, only to climb swiftly Friday.

The draft budget requested substantial cuts to 15 federal agencies while boosting funds for three.

Read: Trump’s Budget Plan Increases Funding To Combat Immigration, Hurts Local Law Enforcement

After the Treasury Department, a major financial industry regulator, saw its proposed funding reduced to its lowest level in more than two decades, the share prices of several of America’s biggest banks spiked, only to drop substantially in value Friday. Bank of America Corp. (BAC) shot up 0.8 percent in the first half hour of trading Thursday, while Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) rose 0.7 percent and both Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) jumped 0.6 percent over the same thirty minute period. All four fell substantially Friday, closing at, respectively, $24.96, $243.90, $58.66 and $90.66.

Compared to the megabanks, defense firm shares saw an inverse movement amid news that the proposed budget increased military spending by nearly 9 percent to its highest level since 2012.

Northrop Grumman Corp. (NOC) dropped 1.5 percent Thursday, while fellow defense contractors Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT), Boeing Co. (BA), Raytheon Co. (RTN) and General Dynamics Corp. (GD) fell by between 0.5 and 0.9 percent, only to skyrocket to a full recovery by market close on Friday.

The sudden drop may have been a result of shattered expectations for military spending, as defense hawks in Congress such as Sen. John McCain of Arizona criticized the budget proposal.

Read: Defense Company Stocks Rise After New Spending Plan Announced From Trump Administration Ahead Of Address Before Joint Session Of Congress

In the hours after news surfaced that the Environmental Protection Agency would see nearly a third of its funding slashed, drawing its budget down to the lowest level in history, major corporate polluters saw temporary share price gains.

Alcoa Corporation (AA) and German pharmaceuticals firm Bayer AG (BAYN.DE), two of the world’s top air polluters, according to the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Political Economy Research Institute, saw respective share price growth of 1.6 percent and1.3 percent in the aftermath of the budget proposal’s release Thursday. Both fell back toward their pre-budget levels by Friday afternoon, with Alcoa finishing the trading day at $34.96 and Bayer hitting $106.85 by market close.

One of the oil and gas sector’s top methane emitters and the former and only workplace of Rex Tillerson, Trump’s appointee for secretary of state, ExxonMobil Corp. (XOM) saw a modest increase of a third of a percent in the wake of the budget release, only to level off Friday for a market close of $82.