Boeing Stock Crashes 11% To 52 Week Low On 737 Ramp Delay

People searching Boeing stock this morning are looking at the planemaker's worst session in more than six years. Shares of Boeing (BA) fell about 11% on Tuesday, October 27, their sharpest one-day drop since June 2020, and closed at their lowest level since April 2025 after touching a fresh 52-week low, according to Dow Jones Market Data cited by The Wall Street Journal.

The trigger was the third-quarter report released before the open on Tuesday. Revenue climbed 4% from a year ago to $24.19 billion, roughly in line with the $24 billion Bloomberg consensus, and free cash flow of $464 million topped estimates, helped by working capital timing and partly offset by about $700 million in Department of Justice settlement payments, the company said. Yet the headline still showed a loss: a GAAP net loss of $116 million, or $0.26 a share, versus a $5.34 billion loss a year earlier that had been driven by a 777X charge. Stripping out one-time items, the core loss was $0.34, wider than the $0.21 analysts had penciled in, according to CNBC.

Related reading: SpaceX Stock Price Slips to $147 as Q3 Earnings Due After Tuesday Close.

The real problem the market latched onto was time, not the quarter. On the earnings call, chief executive Kelly Ortberg said Boeing will keep 737 Max production at about 47 jets a month into 2026 and will not step up to 52 a month until the second half of 2027, a milestone previously slated for the end of this year. That means the company will come up short of its target of 500 737 Max deliveries for the year, and its commercial jet unit, which lost roughly $700 million in the quarter, remains in the red. The commercial airplanes division posted an operating margin of negative 6.5% on revenue of $10.7 billion, down 3% year over year on a less favorable delivery mix.

Compare that with the setup a year ago and the reaction makes sense. Demand is not the issue, the backlog hit a record $745 billion including more than 6,300 aircraft. The problem is the factory. Wing production has lagged the pace of fuselages, executives said, and Boeing needs to demonstrate sustained output before it can raise rates. JPMorgan analyst Seth Seifman wrote that the commercial unit's margin came in about 280 basis points light on cost growth, roughly 3 percentage points short of the forecast. The commercial jet business has now been profitable in only one of the past 18 quarters, Yahoo Finance noted.

Related reading: BE Stock Falls 12% as Cash Outflows Overshadow a Record Q3.

Tuesday's drop was not short-lived. Shares closed near $168, down more than a fifth for the year, on volume more than four times the usual pace, and the slide took YCharts data to a new 52-week low of $167.41. As of Wednesday morning, October 28, Yahoo Finance quoted Boeing at $168.18, within about a dollar of that low. Analysts still expect the unit to approach break-even by early 2027, but that goal now rests on the slower ramp Boeing just outlined.

The market's message is that cash flow today cannot fully offset a delivery schedule slipping a year. The next evidence point is Boeing's October delivery numbers, due next month, which will show whether the 737 line is holding at 47 jets a month. Beyond that, the 2027 step-up to 52 and the planned free cash flow climb to about $3 billion in 2027 and $10 billion by 2029 hinge on the same factory ramp. Any investor watching Boeing stock now is watching how quickly that line can actually move.

Related reading: Netflix Stock Hits a 52-Week Low, Closing at $63.90.

Related reading: Tesla Stock Falls About 1.5% After Q3 Earnings: Net Income Drops 42.7%.

This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Consult a qualified financial advisor before making investment decisions.