The aerospace and defense trade is taking investors deeper into space and exchange-traded funds want a part of it.

VettaFi’s Cinthia Murphy told CNBC’s “ETF Edge” this week that there are now more ETFs tackling the space theme more directly — listing the Procure Space ETF (UFO) and Global X Defense Tech ETF (SHLD) as examples.

“They have the cybersecurity element: Satellites, communications, navigation. So, the defense theme is actually a very colorful theme nowadays. It has a lot of interesting names,” the firm’s director of research said. “It really isn’t just about Lockheed Martin and some of the traditional names that you find in ITA [iShares US Aerospace & Defense ETF].”

As of Thursday’s close, the Procure Space ETF is up almost 19% since the Iran War started on Feb. 28 while the Global X Defense Tech ETF is off 8%.

Meanwhile, the more traditional iShares US Aerospace & Defense ETF is down 10% in the same period. Its website lists the top holdings as GE Aerospace, RTX and Boeing.

Murphy expects investor interest in aerospace and defense stocks to persist long after the Iran war is resolved.

“Any time you have geopolitical heat, it puts this kind of theme on the map,” said Murphy. “But it’s another big growth area because there’s so much new technology coming up and so much investment coming into this space. A lot of governments are making commitments for much more investments in the next five to ten years.”

Murphy suggests historic interest in the SpaceX initial public offering, which is largely expected in June, is fueling even more interest in the space.

“One of the things we’ve spoken about the most this year is about space exploration and space investment given we’re about to see the SpaceX IPO,” added Murphy.

SS&C Technologies‘ Paul Baiocchi is also bullish on aerospace and defense names. He predicts a monster ramp-up in defense budgets around the world will generate solid returns for the group.

“All of these things are converging for the same limited scarce resources,” the financial technology firm’s head of fund sales and strategy said in the same interview. “Near-term, medium-term [and] long-term, commodities allocations, energy infrastructure [and] electrification infrastructure all stand to benefit from the massive amount of investment that’s coming from both the public and private sectors.”

Plus, he sees artificial intelligence playing a key role.

“The bottleneck for AI might be chips, but it’s also power and transmission and the raw materials that go into construction,” Baiocchi said. “If you look at defense, that’s also part of the constrain is the availability of the rare earths.”

The companies racing to build the massive infrastructure needed for the artificial intelligence boom are facing growing backlash over electricity costs, as households and policymakers question whether data centers are driving up power bills.

However, a recent report from SemiAnalysis, a semiconductor research firm, argued that the expansion of data centers is only part of the story, and claimed that market design and policy decisions play a greater role in these energy price increases than AI infrastructure growth alone.

From rural Virginia to the Arizona desert, communities that once welcomed tech investment are now pushing back against data centers amid growing concerns that these facilities — built by so-called AI hyperscalers — are straining local power grids, raising costs for everyone else. 

Since 2020, residential electricity prices in the U.S. have risen by more than 36%, from 12.76 cents per kilowatt-hour to 17.44 cents per kilowatt-hour in February 2026, and are expected to hit 19.01 cents per kilowatt-hour by September 2027, according to the latest forecast by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

“Retail electricity prices have increased faster than the rate of inflation since 2022, and we expect them to continue increasing through 2026,” the EIA said in a March 2025 report before the Iran War.

U.S. President Donald Trump recently also acknowledged the problem for the industry, saying data centers “need some PR help.”

Future energy prices under the mechanism are forecasted prices based on anticipated future demand, calculated through simulations run on proprietary models and data. But with all prediction models, parameters may not always reflect real-world circumstances.

SemiAnalysis argued that PJM’s forecasts often overestimated future demand, particularly as many planned data centers in the area faced construction or assembly delays due to a chronic memory shortage.

The report contrasted PJM with another energy grid overseen by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, where…

The Trump administration on Friday will push the largest electricity grid in the U.S. to make the big technology companies pay for new power plants.

Electricity prices have exploded in recent years on PJM Interconnection due in large part to the data centers that tech companies are building to train and power artificial intelligence.

The PJM grid serves more than 65 million people across 13 states and Washington, D.C. Its service area includes northern Virginia, the largest data center market in the world.

President Donald Trump wants PJM to hold an emergency auction in which the tech companies would bid on contracts for new electricity generation, a White House official told CNBC.

Trump wants PJM to build $15 billion of new baseload power generation, the official said. He also wants PJM to cap the amount that existing power plants can charge in the grid’s capacity market to protect ratepayers, the official said.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and governors from the mid-Atlantic region will announce an agreement Friday morning urging PJM to take these actions, the official said.

“Under President Trump’s leadership, the administration is leading a unprecedented bi-partisan effort urging PJM to fix the energy subtraction failures of the past, prevent price increases, and reduce the risk of blackouts,” White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said.

Bloomberg first reported the news.

Utility bills are rising in many parts of the U.S. despite Trump’s promise to lower energy prices during his presidential campaign. The issue played a major role in the landslide victories of Democrats Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger in the governors’ races of New Jersey and Virginia, respectively.

The price to secure power capacity in PJM has exploded in recent years with $23 billion attributable to data centers, according to watchdog Monitoring Analytics. Those costs are passed down to consumers. This amounts to a “massive wealth transfer,” the watchdog told PJM in a November letter.

PJM was six gigawatts short of its reliability requirement for 2027 in its most recent auction. Six gigawatts is equivalent to six large nuclear plants.

The power shortage makes blackouts more likely, said Abe Silverman, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University who served as general counsel for New Jersey’s public utility board from 2019 to 2023 under Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy.

“Instead of a blackout happening every one in 10 years, we’re looking at something more often,” Silverman said.

A major exchange-traded fund manager suggests the oil trade won’t provide much upside ahead.

VanEck CEO Jan van Eck isn’t excited by traditional energy plays, which include the year’s volatile crude trade.

“The core ‘Old Energy’ world is just a sideways world right now,” VanEck CEO Jan van Eck told CNBC’s “ETF Edge” on Monday.

Yet, it has been anything but sideways so far this year for the oil markets. On Wednesday, WTI closed at its highest level since Oct. 8 on jitters surrounding President Trump and Iran. Meanwhile, Brent also settled higher.

In a special statement to CNBC on Wednesday, van Eck indicated his view hasn’t changed since Monday — citing a one-year time horizon for his outlook.

Instead, van Eck prefers stocks tied to electricity and nuclear power, citing demand from hyperscalers and the broader artificial intelligence trade.

He thinks investors are underestimating the alternative energy’s reliability.

“I don’t think that the ‘R word’ is really understood well enough,” he said. “Data centers can’t be down. They can’t take an hour off.”

His firm is behind the VanEck Uranium and Nuclear ETF (NLR). The fund is up more than 16% since Jan. 1, as of Wednesday’s close. Plus, it’s up almost 73% over the past 52 weeks.

VanEck’s website lists Cameco, Constellation Energy and BWX Technologies as its top three positions, as of Tuesday. Cameco is up 21% so far this year.

Jennifer Grancio, TCW’s global head of distribution, also sees a shift from old to new energy — one that will play out over a long horizon.

“We need all energy sources in order to feed the beast,” she said, pointing to rising power needs for data centers and manufacturing.

Grancio’s firm manages the TCW Transform Systems ETF (PWRD), which she describes as a broad portfolio that includes some traditional-economy exposure, but leans into nuclear and efficiency-related companies tied to the power buildout.

The fund is up about 29% over the past year.

The data centers that power the artificial intelligence revolution are driving up electricity prices for households — and price relief may not be coming anytime soon, according to energy experts.

Residential retail electricity prices in September were up 7.4%, to about 18 cents per kilowatt hour, according to the most recent data from the Energy Information Administration.

Electricity prices closely tracked inflation from 2013 to 2023, but will likely outpace inflation at least through 2026, according to an EIA forecast from May. Some regions will be hit harder than others, it said.

Energy experts and economists point to electricity-hungry data centers that underpin AI projects as a key reason for the price inflation.

These data centers are vast warehouses of computer servers and other IT equipment that power cloud computing, artificial intelligence and other tech applications.

The basic reason for rising prices: Electricity demand — including actual and forecasted demand — is outstripping new supply.

Data centers are expected to consume anywhere from 6.7% to 12% of total U.S. electricity by 2028, up from 4.4% in 2023, the U.S. Department of Energy estimated in December 2024.

John Quigley, senior fellow at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, pointed to the “data center frenzy” as the primary driver of higher electricity prices for households.

“They’re pretty much the whole boat when it comes to increases in electricity demand,” Quigley said.

“It’s going to get worse,” he said.

To be sure, data centers aren’t the only contributor to higher electricity prices, experts said.

But escalating electricity prices “can strain household budgets … undermine economic competitiveness … and hinder the electrification of energy systems,” researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory wrote in a recent analysis.

Rising electricity prices for U.S. households also come as politicians continue to leverage the affordability theme to garner support.

New Jersey governor-elect Mikie Sherrill and Virginia governor-elect Abigail Spanberger, both Democrats, promised to lower electricity bills for state residents. During her campaign, Spanberger said she wants to “make sure data centers don’t drive up energy costs for everyone else in Virginia.”

While on the campaign trail, President Donald Trump had also pledged to cut electricity and energy prices in half within his first 18 months of office.

“Affordability remains [the] most salient issue in…

Industrial and infrastructure stocks may soon share the spotlight with the artificial intelligence trade.

According to ETF Action’s Mike Atkins, there’s a bullish setup taking shape due to both policy and consumer trends. His prediction comes during a volatile month for Big Tech and AI stocks.

“You’re seeing kind of the old-school infrastructure, industrial products that have not done as well over the years,” the firm’s founding partner told CNBC’s “ETF Edge” this week. “But there’s a big drive… kind of away from globalization into this reshoring concept, and I think that has legs.”

Global X CEO Ryan O’Connor is also optimistic because the groups support the AI boom. His firm runs the Global X U.S. Infrastructure Development ETF (PAVE), which tracks companies involved in construction and industrial projects.

“Infrastructure is something that’s near and dear to our heart based off of PAVE, which is our largest ETF in the market,” said O’Connor in the same interview. “We think some of these reshoring efforts that you can get through some of these infrastructure places are an interesting one.”

The Global X’s infrastructure exchange-traded fund is up 16% so far this year, while the VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH), which includes AI bellwethers Nvidia, Taiwan Semiconductor and Broadcom, is up 42%, as of Friday’s close.

Both ETFs are lower so far this month — but Global X’s infrastructure ETF is performing better. Its top holdings, according to the firm’s website, are Howmet Aerospace, Quanta Services and Parker Hannifin.

Supporting the AI boom

He also sees electrification as a positive driver.

“All of the things that are going to be required for us to continue to support this AI boom, the electrification of the U.S. economy, is certainly one of them,” he said, noting the firm’s U.S. Electrification ETF (ZAP) gives investors exposure to them. The ETF is up almost 24% so far this year.

The Global X U.S. Electrification ETF is also performing a few percentage points better than the VanEck Semiconductor ETF for the month.

Electricity prices are rising quickly for U.S. households, even as overall inflation has cooled.

Electricity prices rose 4.5% in the past year, according to the consumer price index for May 2025 — nearly double the inflation rate for all goods and services.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimated in May that retail electricity prices would outpace inflation through 2026. Prices have already risen faster than the broad inflation rate since 2022, it said.

“It’s a pretty simple story: It’s a story of supply and demand,” said David Hill, executive vice president of energy at the Bipartisan Policy Center and former general counsel at the U.S. Energy Department.

There are many contributing factors, economists and energy experts said.

At a high level, the growth in electricity demand and deactivation of power-generating facilities are outstripping the pace at which new electricity generation is being added to the electric grid, Hill said.

U.S. consumers spent an average of about $1,760 on electricity in 2023, according to the EIA, which cited federal data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Of course, cost can vary widely based on where consumers live and their electricity consumption. The average U.S. household paid about 17 cents per kilowatt-hour of electricity in March 2025 — but ranged from a low of about 11 cents per kWh in North Dakota to about 41 cents per kWh in Hawaii, according to EIA data.

Households in certain geographies will see their electric bills rise faster than those in others, experts said.

Residential electricity prices in the Pacific, Middle Atlantic and New England regions — areas where consumers already pay much more per kilowatt-hour for electricity — could increase more than the national average, according to the EIA.

“Electricity prices are regionally determined, not globally determined like oil prices,” said Joe Seydl, a senior markets economist at J.P. Morgan Private Bank.

The EIA expects average retail electricity prices to increase 13% from 2022 through 2025.

That means the average household’s annual electricity bill could rise about $219 in 2025 relative to 2022, to about $1,902 from $1,683, according to a CNBC analysis of federal data. That assumes their usage is unchanged.

But prices for Pacific area households will rise 26% over that period, to more than 21 cents per kilowatt-hour, EIA estimates. Meanwhile, households in the West North Central region will see prices increase 8% in that period, to almost 11 cents per kWh.

However, certain electricity trends are happening nationwide, not just regionally, experts said.