Drone-related stocks rallied on Friday after Secretary of Defense Hegseth reportedly issued sweeping new orders to ramp up production and deployment of drones.

Red Cat up 22%; Unusual Machines up 20%; AIRO Group up 17%; Palladyne up 11%; Ondas up 7%.

"The Department's bureaucratic gloves are coming off," Hegseth wrote in a memo, according to Fox News, allowing commanders to procure and test drone independently and requiring drone combat simulations across every branch of the military.

For the first time, commanders with the rank of colonel or captain can independently procure and test drones, including 3D-printed prototypes and commercial-off-the-shelf systems, as long as they meet national security criteria, according to the Fox News report.