Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT) stock is trading over 2% lower on major volume midday on Wednesday, following a report by Reuters suggesting President Joe Biden is seeking to cut US government's 2025 budget for the company's F-35 fighter jet.
The US leader reportedly requested an 18% cut to the number of jets to be delivered in 2025 - down to 70 airframes, from 83 - representing an estimated $1.8B cut in spending.
F-35, which sells for $80M-$120M per jet depending on the variant, currently makes up around a quarter of Lockheed Martin's annual revenues.
The move comes as the Biden administration is looking for ways to lower next year's defense budget, to comply with military spending caps introduced last year - the two-year budget deal agreed upon in mid-2023 limits the 2025 defense spending increase to no more than 1% over the $886B allocated for 2024.
Shares of Northrop Grumman (NYSE:NOC), another major F-35 contractor, are also seeing strong volumes, and are currently down over 0.3%.