The good news is that beleaguered aircraft maker Boeing (NYSE:BA) finally managed to make it into space after years of trying. The bad news, however—according to reports from Reuters—is that the success really isn’t going to be a whole lot of help, as Boeing and its Starliner still have their share of Hurdles to overcome. This proved little help with investors, who sent shares down fractionally in Monday afternoon’s trading.
Starliner reaching the International Space Station was a huge step forward for Boeing, and absolutely no one can take that away from them. The problem, however, is that there’s already a leader in the privatized space market with SpaceX, and the Crew Dragon capsule is already running space flights.
Boeing is very late to the party, and after the months-long pre-launch drama we watched unfold, it’s not exactly bringing a compelling alternative to an established market leader. In fact, word out of NASA is that Boeing still has a range of test objectives that it has yet to reach, so this sub-par offering isn’t even ready to compete while SpaceX continues to rack up wins.
Its Planes Aren’t Much Better
And then, as if to underscore the problem, a Boeing flight demonstrated a new problem closer to Earth. Out in the United Kingdom, a Boeing plane taking off from Bristol Airport just barely managed to clear the runway after the throttle proved to have a glitch, putting out just barely enough power to get off the ground. The plane managed to get about 10 feet off the ground—and that’s “10 feet” as in “a regulation basketball hoop’s height”—at the end of the runway.
Reports noted that Boeing flights seem to often have “a long history of nuisance disconnects” in the autothrottle system, and a combination of human error and the mechanical glitch yielded the unfortunate result.
Is Boeing Stock a Buy or Sell?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Moderate Buy consensus rating on BA stock based on 17 Buys, seven Holds, and two Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 14.33% loss in its share price over the past year, the average BA price target of $215.43 per share implies 13.14% upside potential.
