Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg Gets Strike One. What the Stock Needs Now.

Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg started in August 2024 with the stock trading around $167. Shares closed Tuesday just about $168. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Key Points

Boeing stock plunged more than 10% to $168.18 after the company pushed out its free cash flow goals.
Boeing now expects to generate about $10 billion in annual free cash flow in 2029, a year later than expected.
The average analyst price target for Boeing stock fell by about $24 to $237 following the report.

A cardinal Wall Street sin is missing financial guidance. After third-quarter earnings, Boeing needs to go to confession.

Boeing stock plunged more than 10% to $168.18 Tuesday after reporting third-quarter results. Current numbers weren’t the problem. Boeing management pushed out free cash flow goals. Now, it expects to generate about $10 billion in annual free cash flow in 2029, a year later than expected. Free cash flow in 2028 will be about $6 billion, 40% below Wall Street’s recent projections.

It was an upsetting quarter for long-suffering investors. (Boeing stock traded above $440 a share in early 2019, just before the second tragic 737 MAX crash.)

Wall Street analysts weren’t impressed either. Dozens of reports have been written, with the general consensus that Boeing stock is in the penalty box until business execution improves.

No one has downgraded shares yet, but analysts slashed their price targets. The average analyst price target for Boeing stock is now about $237, down about $24 following the report.

The quarter represents CEO Kelly Ortberg’s first strike. To be sure, he’s had a lot of hits. Ortberg, an aerospace veteran, was brought into Boeing from outside the company to turn things around.

(He started in August 2024 with shares at about $167. Boeing stock was north of $250 earlier in 2026, before the Iran war sent oil prices soaring. It closed on Tuesday just above $168.)

To be sure, Ortberg has had a lot of successes: shaking up management ranks, negotiating new labor deals, getting new jets approved for commercial service, improving 737 MAX production, and winning new fighter jet business.

But Boeing is struggling to stabilize 737 MAX production at 47 per month, which delays the expected increase to 52 per month. More MAX jets are needed to generate more free cash flow.

Ortberg can’t cut guidance again. There is also one more plane to certify for commercial service, the huge 777X. Boeing still expects to deliver that jet in 2027. The company better hit that target, too.

Wall Street guidance can be a curious thing. To some extent, it doesn’t matter what the guidance is as long as management beats it. And missing guidance can get analysts to turn on a stock story. No one made Boeing target $10 billion in 2028 free cash flow, but now everyone is disappointed it won’t happen.

Boeing stock was down 0.2% in premarket trading Wednesday at $167.82, while S&P 500 futures were up 0.1% and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were down 0.2%.

Write to Al Root at allen.root@barrons.com.

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