One company’s good news can be another company’s disaster. And something similar to that happened today, as aircraft manufacturer Boeing (NYSE:BA) slipped nearly 2% in Thursday afternoon’s trading session. More bad news hit it, and worse, more positive news arrived for an adjacent competitor in the aircraft building space.
Seemingly just after Boeing managed to get one set of mechanical troubles squared away in its 737 Max jet line, another problem emerged for the Max: this time, an Alaska Airlines (NYSE:ALK) flight ran into serious trouble as a door plug on a recently-built Max 9 failed, leaving a substantial hole in the aircraft itself. Since the flight recently took off, it managed to limp back to port safely enough, though with plenty of shaken-up passengers. Now, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is investigating to see what Boeing knew about the bolt failure, when it knew it, and what it did about it therein.
Making Hay While the Sun Shines
In a noteworthy twist, Boeing’s chief rival Airbus (OTHEROTC:EADSY) managed to set a company record in 2023 for the highest number of orders it’s ever seen in a one-year period. 2023 saw Airbus book 2,319 orders, which was not only 29% higher than the previous record—1,796 planes in 2014—but was also better than double the quantity ordered in 2022. By way of comparison, Boeing managed to have a banner year itself; customers ordered 1,456 planes through Boeing, which was the highest total seen in nine years. Still, it was only a little better than half the total seen by Airbus.
Is Boeing a Buy or Sell Right Now?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on BA stock based on 19 Buys and four Holds assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 4.38% rally in its share price over the past year, the average BA price target of $278.40 per share implies 24.69% upside potential.
