Boeing has a new salesperson of the month -- President Donald Trump. We are barely halfway through May, but it's hard to see any of the plane maker's sales reps beating the $96 billion order he just secured for up to 210 planes from Qatar.

Boeing stock is up more than 50% from its lows at the end of March. The jet maker is the primary beneficiary of Trump's dealmaking tour through the Middle East. And while it's not rare for such visits to produce big aerospace and defense contracts, there's reason to believe this boom can keep going.

Initial fears that the Trump administration would slash defense spending are fading, as early signs from the White House and Congress point to little appetite for cuts to the Pentagon budget. While some technology companies such as Palantir and Anduril are seeking to shake up the industry, there should be plenty of money going to the traditional giants. Even Lockheed Martin, still smarting from its loss of the F-47 jet fighter contract to Boeing, should welcome that.

Meanwhile, there's a new big spender in town -- Europe. With Russian leader Vladimir Putin looking to be a no show for peace talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Turkey on Thursday, the pressure is still on European leaders to live up to their vows to boost defense investment. Germany's foreign minister Johann Wadephul said the country intends to increase its defense spending to 5% of GDP, in line with Trump's demands, according to reports -- an astonishing turnaround for a country that has historically failed to even meet the 2% NATO commitment.

Ahead of the Paris Air Show in June, a hub for big trade deals, the pressure is on Trump to rustle up a few more massive orders and retain his position atop the sales board.

-- Adam Clark

***

Trump Highlights String of Middle East Deals for American Companies

President Donald Trump's four-day Middle East tour moved to Qatar, where the administration announced still more deals for U.S. manufacturers, including a $96 billion order for 210 Boeing 787 Dreamliner and 777x planes equipped with GE Aerospace engines for Qatar Airways.

   -- The administration said it was Boeing's largest-ever wide-body order and 
      largest-ever 787 order. Boeing currently has undelivered orders totaling 
      almost 5,700 jets. That stretches out more than 10 years at current build 
      rates. And it is behind schedule on delivering updated planes to be used 
      as Air Force One. 
 
   -- The administration highlighted other deals between American companies and 
      Qatari entities, including $8.5 billion of active projects for Qatar 
      Energy by Houston-based energy engineering and construction company 
      McDermott International and $97 billion in projects for Virginia-based 
      engineering firm Parsons Corp. 
 
   -- Saudi Arabia's national oil company separately announced up to $90 
      billion of agreements for a range of projects including 
      liquefied-natural-gas purchases and artificial intelligence. The company, 
      known as Aramco, flagged deals with Exxon Mobil, Nvidia, and Amazon.com. 
 
   -- Aramco's memorandum of understanding with Nvidia relates to developing 
      advanced AI computing infrastructure and establishing an AI Hub and AI 
      enterprise platforms. Qualcomm will work on AI connectivity projects, the 
      oil company said. 

What's Next: Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives said in a note that Gulf states like Saudi Arabia and Qatar are rising to the priority list for U.S. tech companies while China continues to face restrictions on American chips. "China is clearly taking notice and this adds to the drama" of the broader China-U. S. trade talks, he said.

-- Liz Moyer and Al Root

***

Trump's Tax Bill Moves Ahead, But a Key Hurdle Remains

A bill to extend President Trump's first-term tax cuts passed a House committee but some Republicans aren't on board, a key question for the bill's ultimate passage or failure. Speaker Mike Johnson wants to get it across the finish line by Memorial Day, just 11 days away.

   -- House Ways and Means passed it along party lines. It provides new tax 
      cuts for overtime pay and tips, higher standard deductions for those 65 
      and older, and raises the nation's debt ceiling. It will be combined with 
      bills from other committees that cut Medicaid spending, among other GOP 
      priorities. 
 
   -- Johnson can only lose three GOP votes in the House assuming all Democrats 
      oppose the final bill. The Speaker's problem is that some Republican 
      lawmakers from high-tax states, including New York, oppose the current 
      bill because the cap on state and local tax deductions isn't high enough. 
 
   -- The bill raises the cap to $30,000 for households making $400,000 a year 
      or less, from $10,000. There is room to negotiate. The Joint Committee on 
      Taxation, which is the official scorer of tax bills, said what the 
      committee passed costs $3.7 trillion over a decade, less than the $4.5 
      trillion limit that the GOP has set for itself. 
 
   -- The nonpartisan congressional Joint Committee said lowest-income 
      households, which currently pay little in taxes, could see federal taxes 
      rise in some years after lost tax credits. The average federal tax rate 
      for the middle 20% of households would drop in 2027 to 11.2% from 12.9%. 

What's Next: The Joint Committee's analysis says the top 0.1% of taxpayer households would see their average tax rate drop to 27.7% from 30.3% in 2027. The House plan targets at least $1.5 trillion in deficit reductions over a decade and $4 trillion in tax cuts.

-- Joe Light and Liz Moyer

***

Warner Bros. Discovery Brings Back HBO Streaming Brand

Warner Bros. Discovery has done an about-face with its main streaming platform, announcing that the name will revert to HBO Max this summer two years after ditching the 50-year-old HBO brand and renaming the platform Max. CEO David Zaslav announced the move during the upfront events in New York.

   -- The move puts HBO, the channel behind popular hits such as Game of 
      Thrones and The White Lotus, in the middle of efforts to expand its paid 
      streaming audience as viewers cut their household subscriptions. The 
      brand "Max" was supposed to signal a premium offering, but sign-ups were 
      slow. 
 
   -- The company said the turnabout was a "testament" to its willingness to 
      iterate its strategy, leaning on consumer data. HBO and Max content chief 
      Casey Bloys said the HBO brand was too strong not to take advantage of 
      and the name HBO Max better represents their current customer offering. 
 
   -- The media company dropped the HBO brand because it was worried that 
      reality TV shows carried on Discovery's channels, such as Dr. Pimple 
      Popper, would water down the HBO brand associated with edgy drama series 
      such as Succession. 
 
   -- But the company learned since the name change that much of the content 
      Discovery Communications brought to the 2022 merger with AT&T's Warner 
      Media wasn't being watched. Instead, Max was attracting audiences with 
      shows like The Last of Us and Hacks. 

What's Next: Max had 122.3 million subscribers worldwide at the end of March and expects to surpass 150 million by the end of 2026. Rival Netflix, with 300 million worldwide subscribers, said its cheaper, ad-supported tier has 94 million monthly active users.

-- Janet H. Cho

***

Fintechs Dominate IPO Market as eToro Begins Trading

Amid a frosty market for initial public offerings, with several disappointments already this year, financial technology companies stand out. Chime Financial could test the current climate, filing paperwork this week as fellow fintech eToro, a stock and crypto trading platform, jumped 29% Wednesday in its first day of trading.

   -- eToro shares closed at $67 a share, above the initial public offering 
      price of $52, giving the Israel-based trading and investment platform a 
      market value of nearly $6 billion, based on the outstanding shares listed 
      in its IPO filing. 
 
   -- For eToro, becoming a publicly traded company was a way to boost brand 
      exposure and raise capital to compete with rivals such as Coinbase and 
      Robinhood. Chime, which offers banking services through The Bancorp and 
      Stride Bank, hasn't announced the target range and number of shares for 
      its IPO. 
 
   -- The recent IPO boom peaked in 2021 when 311 companies went public, 
      according to data from Jay Ritter of the University of Florida Warrington 
      College of Business. Amid elevated interest rates and economic 
      uncertainty, just 164 companies listed from 2022 to 2024, the weakest 
      three-year span since the Great Recession. 
 
   -- While the Chime deal may provide optimism for investment bankers for the 
      IPO market, Samuel Kerr of Mergermarket said public offerings have 
      largely disappointed so far in 2025, which may limit Chime's ability to 
      set an aggressive valuation. Klarna, a buy now pay later fintech, 
      suspended IPO plans around the tariff volatility. 

What's Next: This year's highest-profile IPO so far was CoreWeave, a cloud processing company that works with Nvidia and went public at $40 a share in late March. Its first-quarter revenue rose 420% and beat expectations, with a revenue backlog of $25.9 billion.

-- Nate Wolf, Paul R. La Monica, and Janet H. Cho

***

A reader asked MarketWatch about rumors that there are big delays in receiving that first Social Security check post retirement -- with one post saying that the wait to get the first check once you apply is up to 400 days.

MarketWatch asked around for tips from experts about how to avoid trouble.

For more on this, read here.

-- Beth Pinsker

***

-- Newsletter edited by Liz Moyer, Rupert Steiner

This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 15, 2025 06:38 ET (10:38 GMT)

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