While investors obsess over record highs in the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100, one sector quietly crushed them both last quarter, and real money is pouring in fast.
In the first half of 2025, the iShares U.S. Aerospace & Defense ETF (NYSE:ITA) surged 25%, marking the fund's best half-year performance since inception. That's a 20 percentage point outperformance over the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSE:VOO) and 17 points above the tech-heavy Invesco QQQ Trust (NASDAQ:QQQ).
