“Boeing is Continuing to Risk People’s Lives”: Boeing Stock (NYSE:BA) Notches Up as Backlash Against Criminal Deal Grows

The holiday week is proving to be particularly rough for aerospace stock Boeing (BA). No sooner did we come back from Memorial Day than we found Qatar Airways shut down an order that, admittedly, some believed was getting shut down anyway. But then the backlash mounted against a new deal between the Department of Justice and Boeing. Investors, meanwhile, are giving the benefit of the doubt here in job lots, and shares ticked up fractionally in Wednesday afternoon’s trading.

The deal allowed Boeing to pay out $1.1 billion in exchange for avoiding criminal prosecution altogether, as well as paying out fines and for various safety improvements, some of which it was likely working on anyway. Meanwhile, the victims’ families would get an additional $445 million in payments.

Interestingly, many of the victims’ families in those cases support the deal, according to word from the Justice Department. But many is not all, and the ones who do not support the deal are coming out in a big way. Nadia Milleron, for example—mother of one of the victims—referred to the matter as “…a corporate criminal that committed the deadliest crime in U.S history.” Further, Public Citizen’s co-president Robert Weissman noted “Boeing is continuing to risk people’s lives.”

Will Boeing Cost the U.S. The Next War?

Meanwhile, a report emerged that suggested that Boeing—along with several of its military contractor cohorts—could be the reason the United States loses the next war, wherever that happens to be. The report noted that the five leading defense contractors out there are all American firms, and of the top 20, nine of them are likewise American.

But the reports note that defense contracting has grown “bloated”, which in turn is “…stifling innovation and driving up costs for military platforms.” This might have been absolutely true, at least before the appearance of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) started its work. Still, with things as they were not so long ago, this bloat and inefficiency might have spelled trouble for the United States; anyone who has read Arthur Clarke’s Superiority knows the potential consequences of bloat and inefficiency.

Is Boeing a Good Stock to Buy Right Now?

Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Moderate Buy consensus rating on BA stock based on 15 Buys, four Holds and one Sell assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 17.12% rally in its share price over the past year, the average BA price target of $213.37 per share implies 5.61% upside potential.

See more BA analyst ratings

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