Shares of Boeing Co. jumped 5% toward an 18-month high Wednesday after the aerospace and defense giant reported big second-quarter revenue and free-cash-flow beats amid strength in its commercial-airplanes business.
Boeing
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increased production of its 737 and 787 jets, and the “highlight of the quarter” was strong free cash flow, RBC Capital analyst Ken Herbert said.
The quarter was solid, Chief Executive David Calhoun said in a call with analysts, but was not without its challenges, the most significant of which was the supply chain. He noted that “it’s steadily getting better,” however.
“We’re particularly encouraged by generating $2.6 billion in free cash flow in the quarter,” Calhoun said. “Cash flow being the best metric that we have to measure progress against this recovery.”
Boeing’s loss widened to $563 million, or 93 cents a share, in the quarter, from $149 million, or 25 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Excluding one-time items, Boeing lost 82 cents a share, beating the FactSet loss consensus of a loss of 89 cents.
Revenue leapt 18% to $19.75 billion, above the FactSet consensus of $18.59 billion, mostly thanks to strong deliveries of commercial jets and growth in the company’s service business.
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Sales results included a 41% increase in revenue from commercial airplanes to nearly $9 billion, also well ahead of consensus.
Free cash flow swung to $2.58 billion from an outflow of $182 million, which was well above expectations of $88.7 million. Boeing affirmed its 2023 free-cash-flow guidance of $3 billion to $5 billion.
Besides the revenue beat in commercial airplanes, revenue in defense, space and security was little changed at $6.17 billion, to just miss expectations of $6.18 billion; and global-services revenue grew 10% to $4.75 billion to top forecasts of $4.6 billion.
Boeing’s stock has advanced 18% year to date through Tuesday, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
has gained about 7%. Boeing is a Dow component.
See also: What Delta’s investor day tells you about the airlines and summer travel
This post was originally published on Market Watch
