Stock price when the opinion was issued
Defence is expensive. This ETF is aerospace and defence. If you want to be more precise, Raytheon (RTN-N) is a good way, which is focused on cyber defence, missile defence, has the most international sales exposure. He likes the theme of defence spending. You take out some of the idiosyncratic risks by buying this one.
ITA-N vs. XAR-N He knows the defence sector. A problem in defence is the huge run-up in Boeing, which dominates defence. ITA has a cap system in place to deal with this over-concentration in a few defence stocks, but XAR is odd because it's equal-weighted, therefore carries more risk. He prefers ITA.
The period of seasonal strength for this sector is from mid-October right through until early January, and also from March until May of each year. Today there were a number of stocks within the sector that broke to new highs. This is happening because there are terrorist activities going on, which means there is going to be more military equipment that is purchased by all the major countries globally, who want to fight against ISIS.