Good news

Aug 30, 2013

The U.S. Department of Defense announced no fewer than 35 separate contract awards, worth a combined $1.78 billion Friday. A very significant portion of these funds, however, about 32%, was not spent on military hardware at all -- but on shipping costs.

Specifically, the U.S. Transportation Command awarded three contracts Friday, worth $171 million each, to hire FedEx (NYSE: FDX**) , UPS (NYSE: UPS**) , and Atlas Air Worldwide's (NASDAQ: AAWW**) Polar Air Cargo subsidiary to perform a second option year (out of four possible) on their respective indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity fixed-price contracts to perform Worldwide Express 5 (WWX-5) small package delivery services for the military. All three of these contracts will now run through Sept. 30, 2014.