We’re not making this up. Boeing (BA) — yes, that Boeing — has become a stock-market darling among people who just love piling in to stocks.
It’s been rising since right after President Trump’s April 2 tariff proposal announcement.
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To wit:
- Up 5.6% this past week, finishing Friday at $194.85.
- Up 7.4% in April and 6.3% so far in May.
- Up 10.1% so far in 2025.
- Change to Friday from April 4 close (the post-tariff closing low): up 42.7%.
- Change from April 7 intraday low: up 51.2%.
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Helping the shares rally: An announcement this past week that International Airline Group (ICAGY) , which owns British Air, is buying 32 Boeing 787 jets and has options for some $10 billion. The planes would be delivered between 2028 and 2033.
(IAG, owner of a gaggle of European airlines, also has ordered 21 Airbus 330 Neo planes for use by other IAG carriers, including Iberia and Aer Lingus airlines.)
Boeing’s deal has been in the works for some time and wasn’t related to the trade deal the Trump Administration has struck with the United Kingdom, officials said.
Still, it’s good news for Boeing, considering that, just last fall, many analysts and investors weren’t sure Boeing had much of a future. The company had just suffered through:
- The shock of having a door plug fall out of an Alaska Airlines (ALK) jet in January 2024.
- Yet another management shakeup, bringing in Kelly Ortberg in the summer of 2024, replacing Dave Calhoun. Ortberg is Boeing’s sixth CEO since 1996.
- A crippling Machinists Union strike that lasted 53 days in the early fall of 2024.
- The residual effects of two crashes of 737 Max planes in Indonesia and Ethiopia that killed 346 people in 2018 and 2019 The entire 737 Max fleet was grounded for 20 months while software was redesigned.
Result of all that: Boeing paid out billions to families of victims, companies affected. Boeing shares fell 32.1% in 2024 and are still down nearly 56% from their all-time high of $441, reached in early 2019.
It hasn’t paid a cash dividend since 2020.
Starting over again
Since 2020, Boeing has slowly begun to remember it was once a great aerospace company. It has slowly started to rebuild its order book and is looking to retool existing models and, perhaps, design new planes. (The 787 was the last new Boeing product, with its first deliveries in 2011.)
When Boeing reported first-quarter earnings on April 23, it showed it was still losing money, a loss of 49 cents a share, on revenue of $19.5 billion.
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It actually showed an operating profit of $199 million in the quarter, better than the $122 million estimate.
Free cash flow is still negative, but the company expects that that number will go positive later this year when production of 737 jetliners can be increased to 38 per month; Boeing’s production rate now is in the low 30s.
It expects to deliver 580 commercial planes this year, up from 348 deliveries in 2024.
Related: Veteran trader turns heads with Boeing stock price call
The tariff conundrum
A couple of challenges face the stock.
The relative strength index on the stock has crossed above 70, which suggests Boeing shares are mildly overbought. If the RSI hits 80, it really is overbought and vulnerable to selling pressure.
Tariffs remain the big wild card. China refused to accept a jet recently because of highs tariffs, and Boeing has had to scramble to find a new buyer for the plane.
Chinese carriers have ordered an additional 50 planes, but Boeing is is hopng to make the deliveries. But, just in case, the company has identified buyers for the planes if deals fall through.
So, things are starting to look up. Boeing has thought things were looking up several times in the past few years, only to be blindsided by something else.
One can always hope. And one can always hope for a dividend,
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