Boeing (NYSE: BA) has recently become a major headache for the U.S. government and public, its own executives, and hopeful flyers the whole world over.
Just as the memory of a tragic and preventable crash in 2019 began to fade, Boeing’s loose approach to safety came back into light early in 2024 as a piece of a fuselage of a MAX series aircraft fell off mid-flight on an Alaska Airlines flight.
The situation grew more dire as more videos, images, and reports of various parts of the aviation giant’s planes falling off started emerging.
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Boeing’s reputation took another hit when a long-standing whistleblower was found dead earlier in 2024.
The situation was made worse when it was revealed that the pay of Boeing’s CEO grew 45% to $32.8 million in 2023 – just before the many issues came to light in earnest. Some silver lining was, however, offered with the news that he will be departing the company.
Finally, as of early April, Boeing might be in for even more trouble as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is now investigating another whistleblower’s allegations that safety standards on the Dreamliner 787 are so bad that the aircraft could simply ‘break apart.’
Boeing stock price analysis
The latest developments have opened the previously unthinkable possibility that BA may end up becoming a penny stock despite its size. The company’s failings appear, at press time, to be without end and there is no telling just how many additional critical issues will be uncovered in the future.
However things turn out, the restructuring process is bound to be both lengthy and expensive with the costs potentially being stratospheric depending on just how much of Boeing’s business needs to be fixed.
Furthermore, however things turn out, BA shares have already suffered immensely in the stock market.
Since the year started, Boeing is down 30.69% and is the second-worst performing S&P 500 company of 2024 so far.
The more recent trend shows that investors aren’t taking the low price as a value buying opportunity and BA is 9.28% in the red in the last 30 days and 6.01% on the weekly chart. The latest full trading session – Wednesday, April 10 – saw it close at $174.63 after a 1.96% daily decline.
Boeing price today, at press time, stands at $174.49.
Not all doom and gloom for Boeing
While Boeing is indeed in dire straits, it has some factors in its favor from a company survival standpoint. The commercial aviation industry is not only strategically important but also an effective global duopoly with the only other noteworthy contender being the European Airbus (EPA: AIR).
In fact, earlier in 2024, Jim Cramer made a comment that arguably boils down to ‘Boeing is too big to fail,’ and, again, given the company’s important position, there is significant merit to the notion.
Conversely, the situation and the state of the industry have also led to the calls to nationalize Boeing given its size and recent failings which, while unlikely to happen, serves to highlight just how deep between Scylla and Charybdis the giant is.
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