And so comes the reckoning for aerospace stock Boeing (BA), which is poised to release its earnings ahead of Tuesday’s opening. Preliminary results have already emerged, and they are not encouraging. Shares of Boeing slid fractionally in Monday afternoon’s trading based on what is likely to come tomorrow.
Based on what we have seen so far, the answer to the question of what to expect might best be expressed as “a catastrophe followed by tapdancing.” Fourth quarter results came in with $15.2 billion in revenue, and if those numbers hold out, that means Boeing lost $11.8 billion in 2024. That would mean the second-biggest loss in Boeing’s history.
Worse, Boeing has a cash burn rate of around $13.7 billion just for 2024. That is thanks to a series of calamities from a worker strike to a federally-mandated production cap to a dumpster fire in space known as Starliner that, somehow, investors can actually smell on Earth. Any one of these would make a difficult proposition for Boeing. All of them at once could be a nightmare from which new CEO Kelly Ortberg cannot easily recover.
Maybe Not That Bad?
However, there are some positive signs ahead for Boeing, and these may help it weather the calamity represented by its complete earnings statement tomorrow. Analysts are remaining comparatively bullish right now, which suggests that a lot of the bad news may already be priced in.
After all, the bad news at Boeing has been hitting for much of 2024; none of this is new, or arrived suddenly. Indeed, just looking at the totality of the news that has hit so far suggests that Boeing’s numbers will not be great. Whether or not investors take that as a sign to sell, or a sign to hold, remains to be seen.
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 12 Buys, seven Holds and one Sell assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 14.46% loss in its share price over the past year, the average BA price target of $190.50 per share implies 8.52% upside potential.
