Who benefits from “$150 billion earmarked to be unleashed as soon as October 10th for a historic wave of contracts?” Checking out three “Code Red” winners teased in ads for Ian King’s Extreme Fortunes
Here’s part of the intro from the order form of the new Ian King ad that’s getting some Gumshoe readers hot and bothered…
“October 10th is the best chance you may ever get to make the biggest gains of your life….
… a Code Red situation is an extremely rare opportunity.
“It only occurs when technology is so critical to America’s security, it must be given what I call a Code Red (what the Pentagon calls a DX Rating)… the highest priority funding status….
“$150 billion earmarked to be unleashed as soon as October 10th for a historic wave of contracts.
“With Code Red status, billions in contracts can be released within hours.
“Which is why the three companies I’m going to give you today could see their stock prices explode….
“These are NOT big defense contractors…
“They’re small, under-the-radar Silicon Valley tech firms very similar to Palantir the Silicon Valley Wall Street darling… which has recently received billions in Pentagon contracts.”
This is connected to an ad “presentation” from King, selling subscriptions to his “upgrade” newsletter, Extreme Fortunes ($1,995/yr, no refunds).
So… what are those “Triad” stocks? Let’s dig into the clues and get you some answers.
The basic spiel is that the “One Big Beautiful Bill” included $150 billion in new defense spending, and that a chunk of that is going to go to these “Code Red/DX” priorities… which he thinks will send money cascading into some smaller defense technology companies.
And the immediacy of the ad, that “October 10” date that he highlights and keeps coming back to, is partly real, and partly just a made-up deadline that will make you excited about things moving fast, and get you to pull out your credit card. The real part is that the new budget year has begun, and some of the military’s new priority spending, particularly for politically high-profile stuff like President Trump’s “Golden Dome” ambitions, will probably begin to be awarded pretty quickly — that doesn’t mean that these little companies will instantly get shocking contracts on Friday, but it might mean that there’s the possibility of a fair amount of news flow and press releases in the weeks to come (probably not so much while the government is shut down, which also means most of the civilian employees at the Pentagon are furloughed, but that won’t last forever).
So… what are the companies who Ian King things will be beneficiaries of this new “Code Red” spending?
He says this is focused on technologies that can implement AI and modernize the armed forces, and that most of it will be funneled into “little-known Silicon Valley tech companies” who might quickly move from obscurity to dominance, joining the ranks of the legacy tech contractors who build big weapons systems (Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, etc.).
And he calls out Palantir (PLTR) and Kratos (KTOS) as examples of this kind of thing happening in the past — and past successful recommendations he made over the past couple years. Those have been newsletter favorites for several years, and have done extremely well this year.
So what are the “under the radar” defense firms?
He says that they’re “three of the most exciting silicon valley companies in existence today, completely rewriting the rules for defense tech” … and that the address three areas that the Pentagon is prioritizing, which is what he’s calling the “AI Defense Triad,” representing the focus on “Sea, Shield and Sky.”
And to highlight the tiny size of these firms, he notes that, “One is just $3,” and trades on “a little-known market that investors do not even know exists.”
I’m pretty sure that’s the first one, so let’s dig into those clues first:
“Company #1: Silent Accomplice” to Pentagon’s secretive project
This one covers the “Sea” part of the “Triad” — Ian King says that underwater AI drones are a threat for the US Navy, and they know that whoever controls the undersea domain will control global commerce and communications… so they’re racing to develop a new generation of ships, including AUVs, autonomous underwater vehicles.
So this “First code red company” is, we’re told, “working side by side with the Navy and a private defense firm, which is building a brand new 150,000 sq ft facility in Rhode Island to produce a fleet of 200 AUVs.”
So that private defense firm is Anduril, and King thinks the 200 AUVs they’re building is only the beginning … and he says this “Code Red” company is building critical components for a growing market, including next-gen subsea batteries (with a “unique gel-encapsulation technology” to handle deep work) and AI-powered sensors and sonar, in addition to creating highly advanced subsea robots, including mine hunters for Australia.
And there’s plenty of growth, with their batteries being integrated into four different undersea platforms — and to meet that demand, this “Silent Accomplice” company raised $100 million to expand production, and they should receive some of the “Code Red” contracts.
So who’s this? That’s another tease for the most popular undersea drone company, Kraken Robotics (PNG.V in Canada, KRKNF OTC in the US), which used to be called Kraken Sonar when it was focused on selling its own underwater systems (it was teased as such by someone else, back when the world was young), but renamed itself Kraken Robotics about seven or eight years ago, when it switched to offering parts and components for underwater drone makers.
It’s been a relatively steady (if unprofitable) business since then, but their deal with Anduril to supply critical components for its latest underwater autonomous vehicles (SeaPower battery systems and sonar and other sensors) does have the potential to drive a real company-changing surge in sales. Those sales won’t be going through instantly, Anduril’s new factory for underwater drones in Rhode Island was just announced and probably won’t be operating at capacity for a few years, but there’s at least a possibility of Kraken seeing its revenue jump close to 20X if Anduril really orders that much stuff and pays the prices that analysts expect them to pay, and if Kraken can really produce that much larger number of components at a profit.
And the popularity has certainly been rising, so Kraken, which was a $2.50 stock when it was being teased by Jim Rickards in August, is now a $1.3 billion company with a $4.30 share price. They’re generating some positive EBITDA now, though not “earnings,” but the few analysts who follow the stock do expect revenues to roughly double over the next two years, so they might continue to see their profile rise. And that “little known market” he references is just the Venture exchange in Canada, where Kraken is listed (they’re also headquartered in Canada, in case that ends up mattering someday).
And not to jump the gun, but this is the one of the three companies being teased that has the cleanest pathway to pretty rapid growth, if only because most of that growth is coming from this one Anduril supply contract. Don’t know if they’ll become big and profitable someday or not, but it’s at least possible with the current trajectory of that subsea battery business.
Next?
“Company #2: Key player in America’s ‘Star Wars’ defense system”
This is the “Shield” part of the “Triad,” and here Ian King is talking about the Golden Dome, a defense shield stretching across US territory, modeled on Israel’s Golden Dome missile defense system, and has the potential to be the most ambitious defense project every conceived. Apparently the early-stage work for Golden Dome is getting $25 billion of fast-tracked funding from the “Big Beautiful Bill.”
So this “little-known company” “could be first in line to power this constellation of satellites”, and King says the firm is one of America’s best-kept secrets, providing satellite technology that will be absolutely critical, including imaging that can detect a launch immediately. He also notes that they’re “currently monitoring 11 million square miles of earth for the NGA.
They’ve got lots of press releases about contracts with various agencies, and King says they’ve got a breakthrough called “multi burst frame imaging” to provide much more visual tracking data that will be used to train AI software, so he calls it a “direct line into the golden dome’s backbone” … and he says it’s trading around $22 now.
That’s BlackSky Technologies (BKSY), which is also a tiny company — this satellite operator provides high-res imaging and space-based “AI analytics,” and was one of many SPAC failures for a couple years before coming back to life a bit with the promise of more AI defense spending this year (they even had to do a reverse split last year to stay in compliance for their NYSE listing, so even after moving up recently to $30 a share, up about 200% so far in 2025, the stock is still down 60% or so from 2021). They are not profitable, and analysts don’t expect a profit until 2027 or so, but they are at least not burning much cash right now.
The primary focus for BlackSky right now is monitoring — they use their high-res satellite imagery to monitor critical facilities around the world, both economic hubs and military facilities, and to analyze changes in these locations, so that’s a lot of their contracting work now… but they do also provide commercial analytics work using their satellite imagery and AI in some way.
Will they get more big new contracts for Golden Dome? Maybe, I don’t know, there are a lot of satellite systems for monitoring and tracking and imagery (including Planet Labs (PL) and Spire Global (SPIR), both of which also went public as SPACs in the 2021 rush, along with larger legacy companies like Maxar, which is now private), and I can’t say that I have any personal understanding about which of them might be better or more critical than the others, or whether any of them are likely to tie into Golden Dome specifically.
So this one’s the “Sky” part of the “Triad” — King says they have the “most advanced autonomous drone technology the world has ever seen.”
So yes, it’s about drones — we’re told that fleets of AI powered drones will fight the next war, like we’re seeing happen in Ukraine over the past couple years… and that the “Big Beautiful Bill” has allocated billions to the “Sky” pillar.
Clues?
This is “one revolutionary company” that is transforming itself and “collaborating with L3Harris Technologies on an optionally manned vertical-takeoff-and-landing aircraft” — in part by acquiring the autonomy division of Xwing, which had done some work with the Air Force on autonomous cargo delivery.
So King thinks it will become the go-to contractor for autonomous aircraft.
He goes on and on, but that’s enough clues — we know that here King is talking about Joby Aviation (JOBY), which has been focused on building electric VTOL aircraft for air-taxi services, with partners like Delta and Virgin Atlantic and Uber, though they have also moved to focus on defense… in part because there’s a lot of money in that area, and perhaps some more patience in what has been a slow burn of a story so far. And they did buy that Xwing autonomous flight business about a year ago.
This is a bigger company, and a much bigger cash burn story — earlier this year they were telling us to expect at least $500 million in cash burn this year, though they also have roughly a billion in cash and equivalents at the moment, so they can afford it.
Both Joby and its major surviving competitor, Archer Aviation (ACHR), have been teased over the years for their “flying car” air-taxi businesses, they aim to use VTOL aircraft to connect rich people to airports and move them around in places like Manhattan and the Bay area, making it much easier to get from, say, Wall Street to Newark Airport.
I confess to being awfully skeptical about these VTOL/air taxi hopefuls, but certainly adding a defense business on top of the hoped-for commercial VTOL air taxi business could make things more interesting — if only because the Defense department is much freer with spending on R&D projects. I think the last time I looked at the area was back in March, when Ian King, coincidentally enough, was pitching Archer Aviation for his cheaper Strategic Fortunes newsletter. Both Archer and Joby are trading up this year, with JOBY leading the way recently (JOBY is a $16 billion stock at the moment, ACHR about $8 billion), though both are testing with deep-pocketed partners in the Gulf (UAE and Abu Dhabi), both have about a billion dollars in cash (and both burning it pretty quickly), and both are also partnered with the Defense Dept. on potential next-gen military uses for their aircraft — and Archer is working with both Palantir and Anduril, which might be a little sexier, but Joby seems to have the head start in building up manufacturing capacity. I don’t imagine I’d be able to talk myself into buying either of these companies, but I also don’t see an obvious reason to prefer JOBY, other than the fact that its more popular right now and the stock is moving faster. (Which isn’t nothing.)
So those are your three “Code Red” possible contract winners from Ian King… think they’ll be awash in billions of Pentagon money in the weeks to come, or have other favorites you think will see more of a benefit from increases in defense spending? Any important tidbits we should know about these firms before we decide? Let us know with a comment below. Thanks for reading!
