The Trump-brokered ceasefire in the oil-soaked Middle East won’t derail the momentum of two trades that have flourished under the cover of the world’s obsession with US tech giants: defence stocks and gold.

Global defence stocks have rocketed in response to a destabilised security environment that is driving the biggest rise in military spending since the end of the Cold War.

Big spenders: US President Donald Trump speaks with Dutch King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima, and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte (rear centre), at the summit in The Hague on Tuesday.Credit: AP

Gold has also soared to record highs as central banks and investors around the globe grasp for the age-old haven asset amid the economic and geopolitical chaos.

US President Donald Trump hailed the “monumental” outcome of this week’s NATO meeting, which concluded with a pledge from member states to more than double defence-related spending from 2 per cent of gross domestic product to 5 per cent by 2035. This includes a 3.5 per cent spending commitment on core defence such as troops, tanks and weapons.

The only safe prediction in this environment is that global spending on defence will continue to soar as Trump threatens to pull the security rug from under long-term allies, triggering a global military upgrade not seen since the end of the 1980s.

“Let me salute President Trump’s long-standing leadership in calling for NATO to increase defence spending,” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte told the assembled EU leaders at the defence organisation’s opening dinner in the Netherlands.

SPI Asset Management’s managing partner Stephen Innes has a pithy description for NATO as it’s being reassembled by Trump, calling it a “procurement cartel with teeth”.

“This summit isn’t just a diplomatic checkpoint,” he writes in his The Dark Side........

© Brisbane Times