Boeing blasts higher despite sharp Q4 earnings miss

• Boeing stock rose more than 7% but settled closer to 4% gains by the afternoon.
• Q4 earnings missed the market due to defense contracts and last year's machinst strike.
• CEO Ortberg said the company is ahead of schedule on ramping up 737 Max deliveries.
• BA shares rise to their highest level since August 2024.

 

Airplane manufacturer Boeing (BA) has seen its stock price pump more than 7% higher on Tuesday despite posting a deeper than expected loss in the fourth quarter.

A day after the market shaved a cool $589 billion off Nvidia’s (NVDA) market cap on the surprise success of China’s DeepSeek AI model, investors are jumping back into the market in search of discounts. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), which includes Boeing stock, drifted 0.4% higher as the NASDAQ advanced 1%.

Nvidia stock, up 7%, is leading the Dow and NASDAQ higher, but the Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index showed a sharp decline in sentiment for January. 

Boeing stock news

Boeing released its results for the quarter ending in December before the market opened on Tuesday. Shares launched higher due to the CEO focusing on the airplane maker and defense contractor’s turnaround plan. 

Boeing lost a startling $3.86 billion in the quarter due to several setbacks in defense industry contracts and, of course, the two-month strike that resulted in the production and delivery of planes.

Its agreement with the International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers put the strike, which lasted from September through early November,  to an end during the fourth quarter. Other unusual costs stemmed from layoffs that were announced last year.

Boeing reported an adjusted earnings loss of $-5.90, which missed consensus by $2.67. Revenue of $15.24 billion dropped 31% from a year earlier but surpassed the Wall Street consensus by $60 million.

Preliminary guidance from the management already showed a $1.1 billion charge to the commercial airplane segment and a $1.7 billion charge to its defense segment.

"We made progress on key areas to stabilize our operations during the quarter and continued to strengthen important aspects of our safety and quality plan," said CEO Kelly Ortberg in a statement. "My team and I are focused on making the fundamental changes needed to fully recover our company's performance and restore trust with our customers, employees, suppliers, investors, regulators and all others who are counting on us."

Ortberg said that it had run a review of all its fixed-price defense contracts, and that these issues won’t be a problem in the future. The focus is on streamlining the industrial powerhouse and returning to positive operating cash flows, which Ortberg said it would reach shortly.

Ortberg told CNBC separately that Boeing was already surpassing the internal roadmap for returning production to 38 Boeing 737 Max airplanes per month. That is the limit that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) placed on Boeing early last year due to a door blowout on a 737 Max 9 shortly after takeoff. 

The commercial airplane division delivered 57 total planes during the quarter and said that it had a backlog of over 5,500 orders at the end of the quarter. The backlog value currently stands at $521 billion for the entire company, $435 billion of that comes from commercial airplanes. 

Boeing stock forecast

Boeing stock exceeded expectations on Tuesday despite consolidating after its early rally. BA stock shot up to $188.48 before falling by $10, and that was the highest level it had traded at since August of last year.

Still, Boeing stock is well above its 20-day Simple Moving Average (SMA) and was already within a general short-term upward trend with that SMA conquering its 100-day and 200-day counterparts in December. 

Bulls will need to see Boeing shares rise above the $200 psychological level that would allow the 100-day to surpass the 200-day average. The difference in the slower averages has been remarkably consistent since October, so a sharp rise in the share price is necessary to give this uptrend the veneer of confidence.

The $164 level, the top of a high-volume channel, remains supportive, but investors will hope to see advances into the $180s and $190s sticking soon.

Boeing daily stock chart