Ian Lindsay Benfield @imsainvestments: "$INTC $MP $LMT $NVDA INTEL..."

United Kingdom

$INTC (Intel) $MP (MP Materials Corp.) $LMT (Lockheed Martin Corporation) $NVDA (NVIDIA Corporation) INTEL It is one of the most depressing price charts in recent years. Intel’s stock flatlining over the past decade. A blue-chip icon that’s failed to keep pace with the AI boom. Meanwhile, companies like NVIDIA have rewritten the script and delivered eye-popping gains. However, last week Washington made a move nobody saw coming. It bought a chunk of Intel. Under an agreement announced on August 22, the U.S. government is investing $8.9 billion in Intel common stock, roughly a 9.9% stake. The deal is structured as passive ownership (no board seats) and includes a warrant to buy up to an additional 5% if Intel ever loses majority control of its foundry business. Why would the federal government take equity in a company that’s struggled? Because this is about national security, not dividends. Intel is still the only U.S. firm with the scale to build advanced fabs on U.S. soil. The administration, fearing over dependence on Taiwan’s TSMC for the world’s most advanced chips, wants domestic capacity that can supply everything from iPhones and data centres to missile guidance systems. Short of a reliable domestic supply chain, the U.S. is vulnerable. This isn’t an isolated experiment. The administration earlier signalled similar interventions, taking stakes or offering extraordinary support where supply-chain choke points exist, as with rare-earth miner MP Materials. Intel wasn’t the only name in the headlines this week. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has publicly discussed the idea of equity stakes in other strategic companies, including defence contractors. The Pentagon is weighing equity stakes in contractors such as Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT).Thus, Washington isn’t just handing out contracts anymore. It is talking about owning a piece of the very companies that build fighter jets, missile systems, and next-generation drones. Why? Because national security depends on it. Lockheed and its peers are the backbone of America’s military supply chain. But costs are rising, projects are getting more complex, and the geopolitical backdrop is more dangerous than it has been in decades. The Trump administration wants to make sure these firms have the resources to scale up quickly and it doesn’t want to leave that mission in the hands of Wall Street alone. In other words, Washington is moving from regulator to shareholder. That’s a sea change in U.S. industrial policy. First MP Materials. Then Intel. Next, the defence sector. For investors, the message is clear. The US government isn’t just influencing markets from the sidelines anymore. It’s stepping directly onto the field. W64P2

Not investment advice. The author may have financial interests in the mentioned instruments.