Boeing Stock Price Forecast - BA at $205; MAX 10 Scrutiny and Spirit Deal Aim BA Toward $260

NYSE:BA – Stock Reset Around $205 With Turnaround Moving To Execution

NYSE:BA – Credit Quality, Liquidity And Balance-Sheet Repair

Boeing Co (NYSE:BA) is trading around $204–205 today, up roughly 2% on the day and sitting in the upper half of its $128.88–$242.69 52-week range, implying a market cap near $160 billion with no dividend at this stage. The company is still reporting losses and carries negative equity on paper after the MAX crisis and the pandemic, yet it has secured a Baa3 senior unsecured rating with a stable outlook and a P-3 commercial paper rating. That rating stance is anchored in three quantitative pillars: a cash and marketable securities position of roughly $29 billion that cushions certification risk, defense program volatility and labor or supply chain shocks; a backlog of about $636 billion as of September 30, including $535 billion in commercial aircraft representing roughly 6,000 jets, or about eight to nine years of normalized production; and a balance-sheet repair plan under which most free cash flow through 2028 is directed to debt reduction. Moody’s framework assumes Boeing pays down at least $12.5 billion of maturities across 2026–2027 while still holding more than $10 billion in cash, with free cash flow forecast to turn modestly positive in 2026 and expand significantly in 2027–2028. At about $205 per share, the equity is effectively discounting a move from roughly $85 billion in trailing revenue and a ~$10 billion trailing loss back toward an inflation-adjusted version of 2018, when a sustainable profile would be closer to $120–130 billion of annual revenue and $12–13 billion of net income. That level of earnings power would support a valuation around $300 billion if execution and certification trends stay on track.

NYSE:BA – Backlog Strength, Order Momentum And Demand Imbalance

The demand side of the story is straightforward. Global air travel has fully recovered from the pandemic shock and is already printing new records, yet the combined revenue of Boeing and Airbus remains materially below 2018, with deliveries still lower than pre-crisis levels and the mix skewed away from the highest-value wide-bodies. For Boeing, that demand shows up in the numbers: the total backlog of $636 billion is up roughly 22% versus the end of 2024, commercial backlog stands at $535 billion with about 6,000 aircraft on order, and that aircraft book alone gives eight to nine years of production visibility if rates are normalized across the 737, 787 and 777 lines. Through September, Boeing has secured nearly 800 net commercial orders, compared with only 377 for the entire year of 2024, and industry-wide net orders for the first ten months of 2025 are about 24% higher year-on-year. Airbus has seen a modest decline in net orders; Boeing has seen its net inflow more than double. On a value basis, Boeing’s share of year-to-date net orders has moved from around 30% to above 60%, driven by stronger wide-body demand and a catch-up effect after several weak years. For NYSE:BA equity holders, the key point is that the ceiling is not demand constrained. The limit is certification, production stability and the speed with which that backlog converts into deliveries and cash.

NYSE:BA – Spirit AeroSystems Integration And Supply Chain Control

The closed $4.7 billion acquisition of Spirit AeroSystems is the central operational lever in the turnaround. Boeing has essentially reversed two decades of aggressive outsourcing by bringing one of its most critical aerostructures suppliers back in-house. Spirit’s Boeing-related commercial activities now move under Boeing’s direct control, including 737 fuselages, major structures for wide-body programs and key components for certain defense platforms. The financial mechanics are clear: Boeing has paid down about $3 billion of Spirit’s senior secured debt at closing and assumed roughly $1.2 billion of residual debt, while the rating agency still classifies the deal as broadly neutral to the Baa3 profile because increased leverage is balanced by tighter control of quality, schedule and cost on the core programs. For equity, this is pure execution risk and upside. If integration is managed well, fewer quality escapes, more predictable throughput and less rework at Spirit-linked stations should support higher and smoother rates on the 737 and 787, with a direct impact on cash generation. If integration is mishandled, investors will be looking at another multi-billion-dollar operational drag bolted onto an already stressed balance sheet. At roughly $205 per share, the market is clearly assigning some probability of successful integration, but is not pricing in a flawless outcome.

NYSE:BA – 737 MAX 7 And MAX 10 Certification, FAA Scrutiny And Production Ramp

The core of the NYSE:BA recovery is still the 737 MAX family. The regulatory trajectory has shifted from survival to normalization, but the dependence on the Federal Aviation Administration remains absolute. The FAA is evaluating Boeing’s enhanced flight crew alerting and safety package for the 737 MAX 10, including synthetic enhanced angle-of-attack capabilities and improved stall and overspeed alert management, with a pathway that is tied to a prior Congressional extension requiring retrofits across earlier MAX variants within a defined period after MAX 10 certification. A large launch customer has guided the market to expect MAX 7 certification around August 2026, with entry into service targeted for the first quarter of 2027, which confirms the reality that certification is on a multi-year schedule rather than a multi-quarter one. Previous manufacturing limits effectively capped 737 MAX production at about 38 aircraft per month; subsequent regulatory audits have now allowed Boeing to start moving above that ceiling and to reopen a fourth final assembly line in Everett over time to support higher rates. Regulators are not relaxing standards to support the stock price, but the direction is clearly improving: restrictions have been lifted rather than tightened, the engineering response in the form of enhanced alerting is being reviewed rather than blocked, and airline fleet plans continue to assume eventual entry into service for MAX 7 and MAX 10. That combination is exactly what underpins internal guidance that free cash flow should turn positive in 2026 and then increase substantially through 2027–2028 as rates move higher.

NYSE:BA – Wide-Body Leverage Through 787 Normalization And 777X Optionality

In wide-bodies, the picture is more constructive than at any point since 2018. Structural issues on the 787 Dreamliner have been addressed, with the FAA approving specific rework methods for fuselage join gaps and curing methodologies, and deliveries have resumed both from ongoing production and from inventory built during the delivery freeze. This is why the value of Boeing’s deliveries has grown faster than the unit count implies. The more powerful leg, however, is the 777X program. With the passenger 777-300ER line shuttered and Airbus withdrawing the A380, there is effectively no current-generation alternative in the 400-seat segment. Certification of the 777X, now officially pushed to 2027 after earlier talk of 2026, would drop a new-technology, high-capacity twinjet into a market with clear pent-up demand from long-haul carriers. Every year of delay pushes out the revenue and cash profile, but it does not change the structural need for the product. The market has already priced in a late-decade ramp; actual certification will convert that optionality into real backlog delivery and an additional free-cash-flow leg that is only partially reflected in today’s $160+ billion market value.

NYSE:BA – Deliveries Versus Airbus, Mix, And Where The Recovery Stands

When you translate orders into deliveries, Airbus still leads in pure volume while Boeing has closed the gap on delivery value. Across the first ten months of 2025, the two manufacturers delivered about 1,078 aircraft, an increase of roughly 25% versus the prior year and the first time since the crisis that deliveries for that period broke the 1,000 unit threshold. Airbus has delivered around 150 more aircraft than Boeing, helped significantly by the A220 and the A320neo family, where it is running at capacity but remains ahead. Boeing has instead leaned on its wide-body franchises, delivering enough 787s and other twin-aisles that it holds a slight advantage in the value of aircraft delivered, on the order of $0.3 billion year-to-date. Against 2019, the combined manufacturers are delivering about 11% more aircraft in unit terms but still around 9% less in value, reflecting the mix shift away from the most expensive wide-bodies. Boeing’s delivery value has already moved above its 2019 level, while Airbus still lags; that is a clear sign that Boeing’s recovery is now driven more by the wide-body portfolio, whereas Airbus’ over-weight to smaller narrow-bodies limits value growth. Backlog share remains tilted toward Airbus at roughly 57% of units, with Boeing at 43%, but recent net order data show Boeing with roughly 900+ net orders year-to-date versus about 700 for its rival, and a significantly higher share of total order value. That order-value momentum, combined with gradually normalizing deliveries, is exactly what you want to see in a late-stage recovery.

NYSE:BA – Defense, Services And Government Programs As Secondary Cash Drivers

Commercial programs dominate the narrative and the valuation for NYSE:BA, but defense and services are quietly adding diversification and incremental cash. In Australia, Boeing has secured an approximately A$1.4 billion contract for six operational “Ghost Bat” combat drones, following live-weapons testing and moving that autonomous teaming platform into production. In the United States, the Department of Homeland Security has signaled plans to allocate close to $140 million for Boeing 737 aircraft to support deportation and transport operations, a small contract in absolute terms but another incremental proof that Boeing’s platforms remain embedded in government fleets. Across both commercial and defense segments, the services, modification and sustainment business provides higher-margin recurring revenue which scales with the installed base; as deliveries increase and fleets age, that cash flow becomes more important. None of these programs are individually large enough to re-rate the equity, but together they reduce dependence on a single commercial narrow-body ramp and help smooth earnings and cash flows during inevitable production volatility.

NYSE:BA – Street Targets, Valuation Range And Implied Upside

Sell-side targets for NYSE:BA are wide, but the center of gravity is clearly above the current price. Recent consensus compilations show high targets near $285, low targets around $150, and average levels in the $233–$247 band, with medians close to $250. Several fresh initiations sit in the $260–$265 region with Buy ratings, framing Boeing as a beneficiary of multi-year aerospace “megatrends” in air-travel growth, production ramps, defense re-armament and space. From roughly $204–205 today, the average target implies low-20s percentage upside, while the high targets point to about 40% upside if Boeing executes the free-cash-flow trajectory that credit and equity analysts have sketched, moving from negative free cash flow now to low single-digit billions in 2026 and significantly higher levels into 2027–2028. On that path, the stock would be trading at a mid-single-digit free-cash-flow yield at current prices, compressing toward 4–5% if the share price converges toward the upper end of that target range. The existence of a $150 bear target in the same consensus set simply reflects recognized execution and regulatory risks; the skew is still clearly to the upside provided there are no new program-level failures.