From butter to bullets: Europe’s market repricing

Markets often thrive on clarity, but what we are witnessing in Europe is the opposite: a fog thick enough to obscure both the battlefield and the balance sheet. The so-called “peace dividend” of the 1990s—when nations downsized their armies, clipped defense budgets, and plowed capital into domestic prosperity—has been flipped on its head. Europe is no longer cashing in on peace, but rather is paying up for the possibility of endless conflict, and markets are repricing accordingly.

Trump’s dramatic pivot on Ukraine was the match thrown into this tinderbox. For months he had talked down Kyiv’s chances, leaving investors convinced that a messy ceasefire would eventually be sold as a victory. Instead, he declared that Ukraine could realistically claw back every inch of occupied territory. Whether he sticks to that line is beside the point—the trading desks instantly recalibrated. What had been a “peace premium” on European assets turned into renewed buying of defense names, especially as the specter of American retrenchment leaves the continent with little choice but to build its own arsenal.

Rheinmetall has become the totem of this shift. Its stock is no longer just a chart—it’s a barometer of the European psyche. After years of drifting in obscurity, the name has staged a 300% climb since the U.S. election, each new political development acting like another booster stage on a rocket. Investors are no longer treating European defense like a sleepy backwater sector; it’s become the new momentum trade, fueled by the recognition that Germany’s constitutional “debt brake” could be bent or broken to fund the rearmament. When Merz announced his fiscal loosening, bunds narrowed their yawning spread to Treasuries, and the bond market—for once—cheered the notion of more borrowing.

This reversal underscores a broader theme: we’ve re-entered an era where “guns versus butter” is not just a classroom model but a live portfolio allocation debate. Defense stocks are the “guns” trade, finally breaking out of decades of underperformance, while agricultural machinery and other “butter” proxies limp along. Investors are recognizing that fractured societies, populist surges, and contested borders don’t just generate headlines—they redirect fiscal firepower.

And the numbers back the thesis. PRIO and UCDP data confirm that 2024 set a post-war high for state-based conflicts, with 61 simultaneous flashpoints across 36 nations. This isn’t just Ukraine or Gaza; it’s a global relapse into confrontation. Traders are realizing that the market’s past assumption—that Trump 2.0 would broker peace in Europe and the Middle East—was misplaced. Instead, the geopolitical map looks like a trader’s screen where every candle is red and every chart is trending toward volatility.

But markets also have to contend with political fragility within Europe itself. Merz, hailed in March for breaking the debt taboo, now faces sinking polls and the rise of AfD. France is stumbling under its own fiscal and social stresses, and the UK’s Starmer government is already showing signs of strain. This political shakiness has dimmed some of the initial euphoria. Yet, paradoxically, it increases the odds that fiscal expansion is pushed through—politicians with their backs against the wall often choose the sugar rush of stimulus, and defense spending offers the quickest visible payoff.

From a market perspective, the game is clear. Europe is not rolling back its military ambitions; it’s just getting started. The fiscal taps are about to be turned on in Q4, with Germany’s planned €143 billion deficit promising to flood into procurement, infrastructure, and yes, tanks and missiles. The “inverse peace dividend” means portfolios must be constructed around the recognition that arms spending is no longer cyclical—it’s structural.

For traders, this is both a challenge and an opportunity. Old heuristics—short Europe, long Treasuries—don’t hold when Berlin rips up its debt brake and Rheinmetall trades like Nvidia. The contours of this new market are defined not by central bank balance sheets but by battlefronts and parliaments. The peace dividend is dead. The arms race dividend is alive. And in this new world order, Europe’s fiscal cannon is about to be wheeled onto the field.