U.S. Secretary of Protection Pete Hegseth holds a briefing with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Workers Common Dan Caine, amid the U.S.-Israeli warfare on Iran, on the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 19, 2026.
Evan Vucci | Reuters
A dealer for U.S. Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth sought to make a big funding in main protection firms within the lead as much as the Iran warfare, in response to the Monetary Occasions. The Pentagon has dismissed the report.
The Monetary Occasions reported Tuesday that Hegseth’s dealer at banking large Morgan Stanley contacted BlackRock in February about making a multimillion-dollar funding in its iShares Protection Industrials Energetic ETF.
The ETF, which has about $3.1 billion in property, counts firms equivalent to RTX Corp, — previously often called Raytheon — Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman amongst its largest holdings, Blackrock knowledge confirmed.
The Protection Industrials Energetic ETF has misplaced 12.4% prior to now one month, concerning the time when the Iran warfare began, in response to LSEG knowledge.
The FT additionally stated that the funding mentioned by Hegseth’s dealer didn’t in the end go forward because the fund was not but out there for Morgan Stanley purchasers to purchase on the time. It was additionally not recognized if the dealer had discovered one other defense-related funding.
Pentagon chief spokesperson Sean Parnell dismissed the FT report in a publish on X, calling it “completely false and fabricated,” and demanding the FT retract the article.
Parnell stated that neither Hegseth nor any of his representatives approached BlackRock about any such funding. “That is one more baseless, dishonest smear designed to mislead the general public,” he added.
The U.S. warfare towards Iran has stretched into its fifth week, and the battle doesn’t appear to point out any signal of abating.
U.S. Marines have arrived within the area, with the Washington Submit reporting that the Pentagon was “making ready for weeks of floor operations in Iran.”
Trump on Monday had additionally stated that the U.S. will “fully” obliterate Iran’s electrical producing vegetation, oil wells and Kharg Island if the strategically important Strait of Hormuz just isn’t “instantly” reopened and a peace deal just isn’t reached “shortly.”
