Shoot to Kill: Navy's New Rule 🔫

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The president isn't mincing words.

Donald Trump posted Wednesday that he's ordered the U.S. Navy to "shoot and kill" any vessel caught placing mines in the Strait of Hormuz. No warning shots. No hesitation.

He also claimed Iran's 159 naval ships are already "at the bottom of the sea". And tripled down on minesweeping operations in the strait.

Why this matters for markets:

Oil is screaming. Crude futures are sitting at $93 a barrel, Brent is at $102, and tanker traffic through a waterway that normally moves 20% of the world's oil is still way below normal.

The strait isn't just a shipping lane. It's basically the world's most important oil tap. Right now, someone keeps trying to mine the pipes.

What's actually happening on the ground:

Trump's exact words on control of the strait: "No ship can enter or leave without the approval of the United States Navy. It is 'Sealed up Tight.'"

Subtle.

What to watch:

If talks resume Friday and a deal looks credible, that $102 Brent number starts to look shaky fast. If they collapse, energy stocks and tanker operators keep printing.

The market is essentially betting on whether Trump's Truth Social posts are negotiating theatre or operational orders. Given recent history… probably both.

1. Ride the Oil Price Spike
Brent at $102 and the strait still "sealed tight" means crude isn't cooling down anytime soon. Every escalation pumps the price higher.

📌 Action: Add exposure to oil ETFs like $USO ( ▲ 4.11% ) or $BNO ( ▲ 4.29% ) while tensions hold. Take profit if Friday's talks produce a credible deal.

2. Buy the Defense Contractors Building the Drones
The Navy just tripled minesweeping operations using unmanned systems built by RTX and General Dynamics. This is a live, active government contract playing out in real time.

📌 Action: Consider long positions in $RTX ( ▼ 0.89% ) and $GD ( ▼ 0.63% ). Both are direct beneficiaries of an operation that could run for weeks or months.

3. Back the Tanker Operators
130 large vessels used to cross the strait daily. Right now, almost none are. When the strait reopens — and eventually it will — there's a backlog of 1,000+ ships waiting to move. Tanker rates will surge.

📌 Action: Watch tanker stocks like $STNG ( ▲ 1.62% ) or $FRO ( ▲ 0.69% ) for a re-opening trade. The pent-up demand is enormous.

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$TSLA ( ▼ 3.56% ) slipped lower Thursday as Wall Street digested Q1 earnings and a freshly raised capex target of $25 billion.

The results themselves weren't the problem. It's what comes next.

Roth Capital's Craig Irwin called it a healthy quarter. Solid demand fundamentals, decent margin management, a few one-time tailwinds.

His bigger point? The SpaceX IPO is about to eat the TSLA narrative alive. How many Cybertrucks does SpaceX order? Does a Tesla-SpaceX merger happen? That's the debate investors will actually be having. Roth stays Buy, $505 PT.

Wedbush's Dan Ives kept his $600 target and Outperform rating. His thesis in one line: "Tesla is morphing into a physical AI stalwart."

More capex? He's fine with it. The path requires spending.

Morgan Stanley's Andrew Percoco believes in the long-term autonomy story. But he's cooling on the near-term.

Robotaxi and Optimus are moving slower than expected. Equal-weight, $415.

Hargreaves Lansdown's Matt Britzman flagged the obvious: a massive capex step-up means free cash flow effectively disappears for a year or two.

The whole valuation still rests on Musk delivering category-creating products. And the conference call? Just more goalposts shifting further out.

Wells Fargo's Colin Langan was the most direct.

Capex up to $25B. Opex up $1B year-over-year. Optimus and Semi ramps: slow. AI5 chip monetization: not near-term. Hardware 3 vehicles needing FSD retrofits via micro-factories.

That's a lot of spend with limited near-term payoff. Underweight, $125 PT.

Beating on EPS while missing deliveries shows internal improvement. That's real. But committing $25B in capex with no clear ROI timeline? That's a different story.

"Unlike the big hyperscalers, Tesla doesn't have the free cash flow to cover these kinds of expenses. The payoff will need to come quick, or the stock will continue to suffer."

SpaceX's pitch to investors isn't really about space anymore.

In IPO documents reviewed by Reuters, SpaceX laid out a total addressable market of $28.5 trillion. Over 90% of that? AI. And $22.7 trillion of it is tied specifically to enterprise customers.

Rockets are just the warm-up act.

The IPO itself is a monster.

A reported summer listing could value SpaceX at $1.75 trillion and raise roughly $75 billion… potentially the largest stock market debut in history.

No pressure.

Here's the awkward part though.

SpaceX's actual business today is... Starlink. The satellite internet arm pulled in $11.4 billion of the company's $18.7 billion in 2024 revenue. Solid. Real. Profitable.

AI? Not so much. The xAI acquisition is bleeding cash, and the company posted a $4.9 billion operating loss companywide last year.

They're betting big to make the vision real.

Total capex hit $20.7 billion in 2025, with $12.7 billion going straight to AI infrastructure — GPUs, enterprise sales teams, the works. That's more than they spent on space and connectivity combined.

So yes, they're building rockets and selling internet from orbit. But the pitch to IPO investors is basically: trust us, the real money is enterprise AI.

Some analysts are already raising an eyebrow. The valuation may hinge less on what SpaceX is today and more on what Elon says it'll become.

Familiar territory.