‘it’s a very robust market’

Boeing Co (NYSE: BA) is comfortably in the green this morning after reporting encouraging revenue and free cash flow for its first financial quarter.

CEO Calhoun’s remarks

The aerospace stock is trending up also because the management issued upbeat guidance for production.

Boeing now expects to make 38 “737 MAX” jetliners per month in 2023 and lift it further to 50 per month in 2025-2026. On CNBC’s “Squawk Box”, CEO Dave Calhoun said today:

We knew we’d have to content with issues this year. They’re getting smaller, more contained. We’ll defer some things from Q2 and bit of Q3 into Q4. But, on balance, we’re in pretty good shape to make that guidance.

The Arlington-headquartered firm expects between $3.0 billion and $5.0 billion in free cash flow this year. In comparisons, analysts are at $3.86 billion. Year-to-date, Boeing shares are now up nearly 7.0%.

Boeing Q1 earnings snapshot

Lost $414 million versus the year-ago $1.22 billion
Per-share loss also narrowed from $2.06 to 69 cents
On an adjusted basis, loss came in at $1.27 a share
Revenue climbed 28.1% year-on-year to $17.92 billion
Consensus was $1.07 a share loss on $17.52 billion revenue

Free cash flow in the recent quarter was negative $786 million – a massive improvement versus negative $3.57 billion a year ago and significantly better than negative $1.91 billion expected. CEO Calhoun added:

Gross loss was still related to a very large pile of rework costs associated with finished aeroplanes we’ve had in possession since MAX grounding. We started with 450, now down in low 200s. We’ll continue to make progress.

What else was noteworthy?

Other notable figures in Boeing Q1 earnings press release include a 19.3% increase in revenue from defense, space and security business.

Commercial aeroplane revenue shot up a whopping 59.8% but still came in shy of Street estimates. The chief executive concluded:

Orders now are actually, in many cases, exceed meeting five years of demand. Our job is to be transparent about the constraints and not get too far ahead of ourselves. But, yes, it’s a very robust market.

Wall Street currently has a consensus “overweight’ rating on Boeing shares.