How bad can it get for Boeing?

By Christopher Zara

It’s only Monday, but The Boeing Company is already having a terrible week.

Shares of the aerospace manufacturing giant headed into another nosedive today after two big analyst downgrades—one from UBS and another from Credit Suisse, which both went from a buy rating to neutral. The latter was especially damning, coming in the form of an analyst note titled “The Downward Spiral,” MarketWatch reported.

Boeing’s stock was down more than 4% in late-day trading Monday, following a decline of 6.8% on Friday. According to Fox Business, the two dips combined made for the largest two-day drop for Boeing since 2009.

The new downgrades came after the release Friday of emails from a former Boeing pilot. The messages, from 2016, indicated that Boeing knew about problems with a critical 737 Max flight-control system much earlier than it previously stated, as the Seattle Times reported. The 737 Max, of course, was later involved in two crashes that killed 346 people, one in Indonesia in 2017 and one in Ethiopia in March of this year.

The planes have since been grounded around the world, leading to huge losses for Boeing, which posted a record revenue drop of 35% in the second quarter. The company is due to report its third-quarter earnings on Wednesday morning, and per MarketWatch, profits are expected to sink 40% and sales 22%.

Boeing’s stock has tumbled almost 26% since its record high of $446.01 in early March, less than two weeks before the second 737 Max crash.

 

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