Bank of America makes fresh call on Boeing stock price

Baby steps are inactive steps, dilatory advancement is inactive progress. Watching Boeing's betterment has required a peculiar benignant of patience. One that tolerates setbacks, accepts dilatory progress, and resists the impulse to state triumph excessively early.

Bank of America (BofA) Securities expert Ronald Epstein has that benignant of patience. And connected May 1, helium made wide helium hasn't mislaid it.

Epstein reiterated his Buy standing connected Boeing (BA) with a $270 terms target, according to TipRanks data, a telephone that implies meaningful upside from the stock's May 1 adjacent of $227.38. The 5-star analyst, who ranks 211 retired of 12,160 connected TipRanks with a 61.5% occurrence complaint and 19.3% mean instrumentality per rating, didn't oversell the story. His connection was deliberate: Boeing is taking "baby steps successful the close direction," and the turnaround remains incomplete. Progress, helium cautioned, whitethorn not beryllium linear.

That measured framing is precisely wherefore investors are paying attention. Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg struck a akin code aft the BA’s first-quarter results.

"We're gathering connected our momentum with a beardown commencement to the twelvemonth and increasing record-breaking backlog crossed our business," Ortberg said confidently, but not triumphantly.

BofA sees Boeing's 3 divisions pointing toward betterment

Epstein's $270 terms people is built connected a three-segment presumption of Boeing's betterment trajectory, each moving astatine a antithetic gait and carrying a antithetic hazard profile.

Boeing Global Services is the anchor. Epstein describes it arsenic the company's astir reliable net engine. Steadily growing, margin-accretive, and providing the unchangeable basal that allows the remainder of the concern to sorb the turbulence of a accumulation recovery. Operating margins astatine Global Services exceeded 18% successful the archetypal 4th pursuing the divestiture of Digital Aviation Solutions, according to Boeing's Q1 2026 net data.

Boeing Defense and Space is the medium-term catalyst. Epstein sees the conception benefiting from semipermanent request for munitions replenishment and from supported programs. That includes the F-47, KC-46, and F-15EX, each of which look successful the U.S. fiscal twelvemonth 2027 President's Budget Request.

Related: Boeing banal terms resets aft earnings

Defense, Space, and Security reported first-quarter gross of $7.6 cardinal with a 3.1% operating margin, reflecting higher measurement and stabilizing operational performance, according to the net release. Defense backlog grew to a grounds $86 billion, with 27% of orders from planetary customers.

Boeing Commercial Airplanes is wherever the biggest upside lives, and wherever execution hazard remains highest. A wiring contented delayed astir 25 MAX deliveries successful the archetypal quarter, but Epstein expects those craft to beryllium delivered successful the 2nd quarter, TipRanks reported.