Plain, unvarnished good news is in short supply for aerospace stock Boeing (BA) these days, but some of that showed up today. In fact, a potential big new sale is on tap. This sale is not quite as good as the one brokered in part by President Donald Trump, but good all the same. The news was welcome to shareholders, who sent shares up over 1.5% in Thursday afternoon’s trading.
Don’t Miss TipRanks’ Half-Year Sale
- Take advantage of TipRanks Premium at 50% off! Unlock powerful investing tools, advanced data, and expert analyst insights to help you invest with confidence.
- Make smarter investment decisions with TipRanks' Smart Investor Picks, delivered to your inbox every week.
The deal in question is with PT Garuda Indonesia, an airline that plans to step up its international operations. In aid of that, Garuda was interested in buying between 50 and 75 jets. The order would be made up of several different Boeing models, including the 737 Max 8 and the 787-9 models. There was no time frame or price tag presented as part of the deal, and there was also no word on whether or not a deal between Garuda and Boeing would be part of a trade deal between the United States and Indonesia.
Interestingly, Garuda is looking to go with Boeing again despite the 2018 PT Lion Mentari Airlines crash, in which a 737 Max 8 crashed, and prompted Garuda to be deeply concerned about its overall reliability. But Garuda already has an order of 49 planes with Boeing, at last report, leading some to wonder if this new order would be in place of that order or alongside it.
Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory
And then, because this is Boeing we are talking about here, something went wrong. Someone in Raleigh, North Carolina, went out to their driveway and discovered a large metal part just laying there. This part, reports noted, could possibly have been a missing wing flap from a Boeing 737-900ER, which lost part of a wing flap from a flight on Tuesday.
The flight was going from Atlanta to Raleigh and lost a chunk of the wing’s trailing edge flap. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is currently investigating, and believes that the chunk of metal found in a driveway in Raleigh was the portion of the wing in question. Needless to say, this is absolutely not something Boeing needed right now, particularly with the FAA maintaining a production cap on Boeing’s assembly lines.
Is Boeing a Good Stock to Buy Right Now?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on BA stock based on 17 Buys, two Holds and one Sell assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 14.72% rally in its share price over the past year, the average BA price target of $226.42 per share implies 5.02% upside potential.
