So we all know by now that the astronauts that aerospace stock Boeing (BA) left sitting aboard the International Space Station (ISS) have been left to face multiple return delays after their eight to 10 day trip turned into an eight to 10 month fiasco. There is at last good news for those totally-not-stranded astronauts, as they are on the schedule to come home a little earlier than expected. Boeing being finally able to put this whole mess to bed gave shareholders new hope, and shares were up over 1.5% in Wednesday afternoon’s trading.
Maximize Your Portfolio with Data Driven Insights:
- Leverage the power of TipRanks' Smart Score, a data-driven tool to help you uncover top performing stocks and make informed investment decisions.
- Monitor your stock picks and compare them to top Wall Street Analysts' recommendations with Your Smart Portfolio
Essentially, thanks to a bit of schedule swapping with the SpaceX team, the Crew-10 mission will be going live, potentially, around March 12, which is a couple weeks ahead of schedule. The original plan called for “late March.” The Crew-9 spacecraft, the Crew Dragon Freedom, is currently docked at the ISS, and will be able to swap places with the Crew-10 spacecraft coming up after a “…several day handover period,” reports noted.
President Trump got personally involved in the matter, and charged SpaceX head Elon Musk to bring the duo of Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams home as soon as possible. This latest schedule shift improves “soon as possible” by a couple weeks.
Fewer Layoffs Than Expected
Additionally, yesterday, we discovered that Boeing was looking at more layoffs in connection with its Space Launch System (SLS) and its connection at NASA. But new reports suggest that the job cuts around the SLS program will not be so pronounced as originally expected.
Original reports looked for Boeing to drop 400 jobs, as NASA changed how much involvement it would have with SLS. But now, thanks to some changes on the cost estimates, that number has been cut in half. That is still 200 jobs set to be lost as a result of changes in the SLS project, but it is 200 fewer jobs that would have been lost without the changes.
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 13 Buys, five Holds and one Sell assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 10.37% loss in its share price over the past year, the average BA price target of $196.29 per share implies 6.85% upside potential.
