Defense stocks are one of the smartest buys of the Trump era, given his stated commitment to boosting defense spending by $54 billion.

As we’ve seen, drones and autonomous vehicles are two high-profit ways to play the growth energizing this $1.7 trillion sector…

But the big play – the really disruptive, transformative 21st-century technology – is military lasers.

“Ray guns.”

It sounds like science fiction, but it’s a fact. Laser weapons are here now, and perhaps as soon as next year they’ll change the way the U.S. military fights conflicts all over the world.

You’ll have reaped the financial rewards long before that, though…

An Infinite, Safe Supply of Ammunition

You can’t fight without ammo, and that makes it a huge consideration to weigh when you’re designing (and paying for) a fighter plane or a battleship, for example.

A turret for a 16-inch naval gun housing costs around $1.5 million – without the guns. Shells can weigh anywhere from 1 to 1.5 tons, and each one going to outfit the U.S. Navy’s new, $4 billion Zumwalt-class destroyer costs $800,000.

Ammo can be dangerous, too.

Shells need to be stored in huge, vulnerable magazines aboard ships. In battle, a lucky shot at a ship’s magazine might cause a catastrophic explosion. Even in peacetime, lethal misfires and explosions have occurred, killing dozens of sailors.

The technology is, essentially, medieval. Of course there have been refinements over the centuries, but at the end of the day, a shell is a heavy piece of metal hurled downrange though a sturdy tube by exploding chemical propellants, just like it was in the 13th century.

Laser weapons could make all this ancient history.

You don’t need to keep expensive, dangerous shells around anymore, and you don’t have to build your planes and ships to accommodate them, either, so your weapons platform – manned or unmanned – is open to other useful equipment.