Have you ever watched a stock you wrote off years ago suddenly look interesting again? That’s exactly how I’m feeling about Boeing right now.
For the longest time, the name alone triggered memories of grounding orders, whistleblowers, and endless headlines about quality issues. Yet here we are in December 2025, and one of Wall Street’s heavyweight banks just came out swinging with a fresh Buy rating and a price target that feels almost optimistic. Thirty-plus percent upside? From this Boeing? Color me intrigued.
The Big Picture Just Shifted
Let’s be honest — the past five years have been brutal for anyone holding Boeing shares. Regulatory headaches, production halts, and a global pandemic that crushed air travel combined into what felt like a perfect storm. The stock spent years stuck in the mud while the broader market raced ahead.
But something interesting is happening beneath the surface. The same analysts who were pounding the table to sell at $150 not that long ago are now talking about multi-year growth drivers and trillion-dollar market opportunities. When sentiment flips this hard, it’s usually worth paying attention.
What Citi Actually Sees
The core thesis is surprisingly simple: aerospace and defense sits at the center of several unstoppable trends that have nothing to do with the economic cycle. Think geopolitical tension driving defense spending, aging fleets needing replacement, and airlines finally ready to expand again after years of caution.
When you zoom out far enough, the math starts looking compelling. Global air traffic continues climbing back toward pre-pandemic levels and beyond. Defense budgets aren’t getting smaller. And someone has to build all those planes.
The end game will be the creation of trillions of dollars of market cap across the group.
Wall Street aerospace analyst
That’s not marketing hype — that’s what happens when you have secular demand running into constrained supply for years on end.
The Backlog Everyone Forgets About
Here’s the part that still blows my mind: Boeing’s commercial backlog sits at roughly 5,600 aircraft. Let that number sink in for a second. That’s about seven years of current production rates, and orders keep coming in.
Airlines aren’t just replacing old planes anymore — they’re planning for growth they delayed during the pandemic. Every major carrier from Delta to Emirates has been announcing big orders. These aren’t options or letters of intent; these are firm commitments with deposit checks attached.
- Southwest taking hundreds more 737 MAX jets
- United’s massive wide-body order split between Boeing and Airbus
- Ryanair continuing its all-Boeing strategy
- Emerging market carriers expanding fleets aggressively
This isn’t speculative demand. It’s locked-in revenue visibility that stretches well into the next decade.
The Production Ramp That Actually Matters
Everyone knows the 737 MAX story by heart at this point. What fewer people appreciate is how methodically the company has approached getting production back on track.
New leadership came in with a very different philosophy: no more rushing rate increases until quality metrics hit specific targets. Six key performance indicators now have to be met before any production step-up gets approved. It’s slower than Wall Street wanted initially, but it’s working.
The 737 line is steadily moving toward 38 planes per month, with clear visibility to 50+ in the coming years. The 787 program, which had its own quality challenges, is stabilizing at 10 per month with plans to push higher. Each incremental plane adds massive operating leverage because so much of the cost base is fixed.
Cash Flow — The Real Game Changer
Perhaps the most underappreciated part of the bull case is the coming cash flow inflection. For years, Boeing burned billions dealing with MAX grounding costs, pandemic losses, and supply chain chaos. The balance sheet took real damage.
That chapter is closing. Analysts now project a return to positive free cash flow in the near future, with numbers climbing sharply from there. When an industrial company with Boeing’s margins starts generating real cash again, the valuation math changes dramatically.
Suddenly you’re not just buying earnings — you’re buying a company that can reduce debt, resume dividends, and potentially buy back shares. All while sitting on that massive backlog.
Defense and Space: The Quiet Strength
While commercial airplanes grab headlines, the defense and space division provides crucial stability. Programs like the KC-46 tanker, T-7 trainer, and various helicopter lines generate steady revenue with higher margins than commercial work.
Geopolitical tensions aren’t going away. Defense budgets continue trending higher across NATO countries and allies in Asia. Boeing remains deeply embedded in America’s defense industrial base — the kind of position that’s extremely difficult to displace.
The Risks Haven’t Disappeared
Let’s keep it real — this isn’t a risk-free story. Supply chain constraints remain the biggest near-term hurdle. Labor negotiations could create noise. Regulatory scrutiny isn’t going anywhere.
But here’s what I’ve learned watching turnaround stories: the best time to get interested is often when the risks are well understood and already priced in. When the margin of safety comes from conservative assumptions rather than hoping problems magically disappear.
That’s where Boeing sits today. The market has spent years focused on what could go wrong. Now the conversation is shifting toward what happens when things start going right.
Where the Stock Could Go
The $265 target making headlines implies significant multiple expansion from current levels. But when you consider where cash flow and earnings could be in 2027-2028 with normalized production rates, the valuation starts looking reasonable rather than aggressive.
In my experience, industrial turnarounds rarely move in straight lines. There will be quarters that disappoint, headlines that spook investors, and periods where progress feels painfully slow. But the combination of backlog visibility, operating leverage, and secular tailwinds creates a setup that’s hard to find elsewhere in the market right now.
Sometimes the best opportunities hide in plain sight — in companies everyone already knows, with problems everyone already understands, at the exact moment when the story begins to change.
Boeing might just be one of those stories.
