A jargon phrase that refers to the stocks and bonds of companies whose primary business activity is defense contracting. For example, war babies could be the stocks of companies which are involved in building warplanes, weapons, canons, machine guns, etc. or in military logistics and provisions. At times of wars and military conflicts, such defense companies have a larger potential to gain defense contracts, and therefore their stocks tend to do better than the market.

War babies, or war brides, are also known as defense stocks and defense bonds.