What's the market impact of tech-centered federal policies?

The last update on the 2026 Midterm Elections showed the Democrats with an 82% chance of claiming the House. This week it’s up to 85%.

For the Senate, the Republicans remain in the lead this week, but their victory margin has decreased by 3%, from a 62% chance of controlling the Senate to a 59% chance.

Democrats are inching closer and closer to potentially controlling both.

Over the past year, the Trump administration has introduced and passed a series of regulatory laws and executive orders, with many directly benefiting companies at the forefront of coveted sectors of the tech industry, like AI and cybersecurity.

With laws expanding across industries, loosening their grip when it comes to regulations, how do associated companies respond — and affect — Trump’s policies?

Using Quiver’s data and policy analyses, we created a timeline to wrap up the last year of major tech-related policymaking and where the biggest impacts were.

Let’s look into some specific policy frameworks introduced this year and how they’ve affected the market:

After being introduced into the Senate in May 2025, the bill passed into law in July 2025, establishing a new regulatory framework for payment stablecoins to position the U.S. as the “crypto capital of the world.”

A summary of the bill by Quiver Quantitative predicts that Coinbase (COIN) could be directly impacted by the GENIUS Act, being a major player in the cryptocurrency exchange space. In the latter half of 2025, Coinbase reported spending over $2M lobbying for the legislation.

But despite legislation that analysts argue would positively impact the company, Coinbase stocks have had high volatility, peaking in July 2025, but has faced a decline since October.

Trump’s annouced an EO to amend previous EOs to strengthen the nation’s cybersecurity efforts, especially when it comes to national security and its related federal agencies (i.e., DHS). The EO has already had tremendous impacts on the private sector, as more tech and cybersecurity companies secure government contracts.

Recognized as one of the leading providers of cybersecurity services to the federal government, Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH) has secured over $400M in government contracts (on par with the year prior). The company has also spent more on corporate lobbying for 2025 than the previous three years combined.

In 2025, Palo Alto Networks (PANW) spent nearly twice as much in corporate lobbying as in 2024, with the majority of its corporate lobbying directed to the Department of Homeland Security Computer Industry, one of the agencies emphasized in new cybersecurity frameworks.

With over 30% of Leidos (LDOS) revenue coming from the Health and Civil sector, the company reported that the majority of its lobbying efforts focused on defense for the past year. The majority of the remaining revenue is from National Security and Defense.

Leidos currently holds over a $5.5B contract with the federal Defense Health Agency to implement MHS Genesis, remaining the main contractor for military health-related cyber platforms.

Despite these companies’ major contributions in corporate lobbying and millions in federal contracts, dependence on the U.S. government puts their stocks at higher risk.

As shown below, both Palo Alto Networks and Booz Allen Hamilton faced high volatility over the past year, with BAH stocks dropping in value overall. The drops could be related to both companies’ reliance on government contracts for IT-related projects.

Leidos, on the other hand, has seen an increase in its overall stock performance, possibly due to its more niche, defense-related cybersecurity and AI-related tools.

Amazon (AMZN) is the largest provider of cloud computing services globally, under the name AWS. Provisions of EO 14318 include streamlining federal approval for projects, which would directly benefit Amazon’s $100B investment in data centers in 2025, eliminating previous environmental hurdles.

While the service only clocks in at about 17% of the overall revenue, the majority of Amazon’s profits are from AWS.

NVIDIA (NVDA) has been the backbone in the push towards AI, known for inventing the Graphics Processing Unit — an essential component of AI and Machine Learning. In 2025, almost all of the company’s profits stemmed from data centers.

Moreover, NVIDIA — which has remained relatively quiet when it comes to political campaigns — donated nearly $5m in corporate lobbying in 2025, compared to previous years when the company’s lobbying did not come close to even half-a-million dollars.

Almost all of the company’s lobbying has been related to the Chip Security Act, which would close loopholes that could allow restricted countries, like China, from accessing advanced AI chips from third-party distributors. Just recently, NVIDIA received approval from the Trump administration to sell an older-generation H200 chip to China, leading to a slight increase in stock prices.

Following a similar pattern to other major players in the data industry, NVIDIA saw a steep increase in stock prices starting May 2025.

To follow up on its earlier promise to rescind restrictions and regulations on the AI industry, the Trump administration introduced a new AI framework to reestablish its place in government, including contracting private companies for defense projects.

Palantir (PLTR) was one of the largest donors to Trump’s campaign ahead of the 2017 election. In 2024, CEO Peter Thiel also voiced support for Trump over Harris. Claims have been made regarding Palantir’s alleged secretive work with the Trump administration, raising concerns over data privacy.

Palantir has been recognized as a major contractor for the DoD through its Maven Smart System, reportedly securing a $10B, 10-year deal. In 2025, the company recieved $140M in government contracts, significantly higher than previous years. 55% of its revenue also stems from the government.

Palantir’s stock prices have soared in the past year, remaining high above the baseline compared to the previous five years. Is Palantir doing better under the Trump era by coincidence, or are the co-founders’ close ties with Trump putting it at an advantage?

Check out