Media uproar aside, does the mercurial US president's word still carry any real weight?
Two weeks ago, RTX - whose shares are also trading at record highs - was singled out by Donald Trump on the grounds that the group was putting shareholder interests first, allegedly leaving it with insufficient leeway to undertake the capacity-expansion investments repeatedly demanded by the executive branch.
Backed by the numbers, MarketScreener largely validated the first part of that assessment, noting that over the past decade RTX, based in Arlington, returned $50bn to shareholders through dividends and share buybacks, far more than the $31bn earmarked for investment and acquisitions.
The picture is fairly similar at Lockheed Martin, which makes the famous F-35, amongst other programs, based in Bethesda and which has returned $60bn to shareholders over the past decade - quadruple its total investment and acquisitions - although the group has been less active on that front than RTX.
At a time when geopolitical tensions are the most acute since the Cold War, Lockheed and RTX are both valued at record multiples of earnings and shareholders' equity. In other words, Trump's threats have so far not been taken seriously; and, from here, no slip-up is allowed in terms of results.
