Summary
⚈ The stock jumped 5.07% in pre-market trading on April 23, reducing its year-to-date losses to 3.52%, supported in part by a $10.55 billion sale of its Digital Aviation Solutions unit to Thoma Bravo.
⚈ Analyst sentiment remains largely bullish, with 13 of 19 analysts rating the stock a ‘Buy’ and an average price target of $194.35, indicating a 13.8% upside from current levels.
On Wednesday, April 23, aviation giant Boeing held its Q1 2025 earnings call before the market opened.
Let’s get straight to the meat of the matter — losses came in significantly under analyst expectations. Whereas Wall Street researchers were anticipating a loss of $1.24 per share and revenue of $19.66 billion, Boeing provided a loss of $0.49 per share and $19.5 billion in revenue.
The earnings per share (EPS) beat was more than enough to overshadow the comparatively narrow revenue miss. In the pre-market trading session, Boeing stock (NYSE: BA) surged by 5.07%, up to $171 from the prior day’s close of $162.52.
With this latest move to the upside, BA stock has narrowed its year-to-date (YTD) losses down to 3.52%.
While the discrepancy between expected and actual losses is quite significant, Boeing was (and continues to be) exposed to several risks that should not be discounted.
Boeing hopes to offset losses with a key sale
One of the key ways in which the business is hoping to further staunch losses and shore up the price of BA stock is through a recently announced sale.
Namely, Boeing will sell portions of its Digital Aviation Solutions segment (think flight planning tools, maintenance and leasing software, and navigation charts) to private equity firm Thoma Bravo in a $10.55 billion all-cash deal.
BA stock seems set for recovery in the rest of 2025
As of the time of writing, Wall Street analysts haven’t had time yet to publish revised coverage of BA stock.
However, what we can do is give the most up-to-date account. At present, 19 analysts have set ratings for Boeing shares in the past three months — 13 deem them a ‘Buy’, 5 gave them a ‘Hold’ rating, and a single analyst maintains a ‘Sell’ rating, according to information retrieved by Finbold from TipRanks on April 23.
Moreover, the average 12-month price forecast for BA shares is currently $194.35, which implies a 13.80% upside compared to current prices.
That’s quite a bullish outlook on the whole — and while we’re certainly going to see revised coverage in the coming days and weeks, it’s hard to imagine that the results of Q1 will lead to reduced estimates.
Lastly, Boeing effectively operates as part of a duopoly together with Airbus, as they are the only two producers of large jet airliners. Boeing’s recovery — and the recovery of Boeing stock, isn’t a matter of if — it’s a matter of when, and that’s something that Wall Street has been aware of for quite a while, although the exact dynamics and timing of that recovery are still up in the air.
Readers should keep a close eye on analyst revisions in the near term, as they will provide a more material outlook on future expectations.
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