Boeing Co. (BA) delivered its first 777-300ER (Extended Range) airplane to GE Capital Aviation Services and its lease customer Philippine Airlines. It is the first 777 in the fleet of Philippine Airlines. The aircraft was packed with relief supplies for victims of Typhoon Ketsana.  The airline has four more of this aircraft on order with Boeing. In the recently reported third quarter of fiscal 2009, the company booked 96 gross orders. The company finished the quarter with segmental backlog of $254 billion.  The Boeing 777-300ER is among the most efficient airplanes in the 300-to-400 seat segment, which would provide the airlines the flexibility to serve key markets worldwide while offering its passengers the highest levels of comfort and reliability. Additionally, the aircraft brings new twin-engine efficiency to the airline's long-haul fleet.  The aircraft is powered by General Electric GE90-115BLs, the world's largest and most powerful commercial jet ...

The Boeing Company (BA) towed the first 747-8 Freighter model out of its factory in Everett. The long-awaited freighter is now being put up for test flights. The 747-8 Freighter is the new high-capacity 747 that will give cargo operators the lowest operating costs and best economics of any freighter airplane while providing enhanced environmental performance. It is 250 feet, 2 inches (76.3 m) long, which is 18 feet and 4 inches (5.6 m) longer than the 747-400 series Freighter. The stretch provides customers with 16% more revenue cargo volume compared to its predecessor. That translates to four additional main-deck pallets and three additional lower-hold pallets. Boeing to date has secured 105 orders for the 747-8 series aircrafts, 78 of which are orders for the freighter variant. The rest orders are for the passenger variant. The 747-8 Freighter series will boost the commercial aircraft segment of ...

Moody’s Investor Services (MCO) has downgraded Boeing Co.’s (BA) rating outlook to "negative" from "stable". The major reason for the downgrade was the delay in the airplane maker's new 787 series, besides other setbacks that had hurt its financial flexibility.   Pitted against Airbus’s A319 aircraft, Boeing’s 787 series is plagued by delays. The inaugural test flight at the end of fiscal 2009 is more than two years behind the original delivery schedule. The company has already deferred the inaugural delivery of the 787 series aircraft five times.   Boeing has witnessed falling orders in the recent times for its commercial planes on account of tepid demand for air travel and cargo services. Already, a slew of commercial airlines have cancelled or deferred their fleet additions. Boeing has cut costs and announced reduction in its workforce along with scaling back production of some aircrafts. Moody's estimates a 20%

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The Boeing Company (BA) yesterday announced that it will record a $1 billion charge in the third quarter of fiscal 2009. The company attributed the charge from a delay in producing a new version of the 747-8 series freighter jet, leading to slow sales and late design changes. The aircraft competes with Airbus' A380 series aircraft. The goliath of commercial aerospace, Boeing has witnessed falling orders for its commercial planes in the recent times on account of tepid demand for air travel and cargo services. Already, a slew of commercial airlines have cancelled or deferred their fleet additions. Boeing has cut costs, reduced workforce and scaled back production of some aircrafts to cope with the changing market dynamics.   The $1 billion charge includes $640 million for higher estimated production costs consisting of late engineering design changes. This is besides the $360 million stemming from Boeing's decision ...

Rare earth elements (REEs) have been the mystery metals of the mining world for years. Now, suddenly, everyone’s heard about them.

Before we delve into the reasons behind all the publicity, here’s the basic skinny on REEs: One, they are rare, at least sort of. Two, they are indispensable to modern technology. Three, the number of active, dedicated producers is tiny, with more than 90% of the world’s supply coming from China.

If you took high school chemistry, you probably remember the periodic table of the elements. But if you’re like most of us, even if you pulled a 95 on the chem final, you may not recall many of the details today. And there’s a better than even chance you never bothered to memorize the names of the REEs. It’s time to get reacquainted.

They’re generally clustered in a separate grouping at the bottom of the table, are known collectively as the

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Standard & Poor's said on Friday that it is apprehensive about The Boeing Company’s (BA) risk in terms of order cancellations and deferrals for its commercial aircrafts. Pitted against Airbus’s A319 aircraft, Boeing’s 787 series is plagued by delays. The inaugural test flight at the end of fiscal 2009 is more than two years behind the original delivery schedule. The company has already deferred the inaugural delivery of the 787 series aircraft five times. Standard & Poor's is apprehensive this may force Boeing to scale back production of models 737, 747, 767 and 777 -- virtually everything other than its new 787 series in fiscal 2010. This viewpoint is shared by Fitch Ratings as well. As of now, Standard & Poor's has a Buy rating on Boeing’s shares while Fitch has an "A+" rating. The goliath of the commercial aerospace, Boeing has witnessed falling orders in ...

Boeing Company (BA) yesterday bagged an order for fourteen 737-700 series aircrafts from Canadian airliner WestJet. This took WestJet’s pending deliveries for 737-700 series aircraft from Boeing to 54. With this order, Boeing has been able to maintain its position as the sole supplier to WestJet. As of now, WestJet’s fleet consists of an all-Boeing squad of eighty-one 737 aircrafts. Boeing’s 737-700 aircraft is pitted against Airbus’s A319 aircraft. To date, Boeing has booked more than 5,000 orders from around 120 customers spread around the globe. Of this, more than 2,100 deliveries worth more than $158 billion are pending. Boeing’s focus on 737-700 is evident with its earlier revelation of 2% improvement on fuel consumption by 2011, through a combination of airframe and engine improvements. Headquartered in Chicago, Boeing is the world’s largest manufacturer of commercial jet liners and military aerospace products (based on total ...

The awareness of defending our country after the Anthrax scare and 9/11 pushed companies into action to develop better early warning control systems. With the advantage of technology constantly improving, this gave researchers the edge to cover a wide range of threats. From biological and chemical attacks, to tracking the movements of bomb making equipment and their ingredients, the US government and private industries are constantly searching for the best that companies have to offer. The development of early warning detection systems for our country is now in high demand and will be far into the future.

Society within the U.S. before all of this felt somewhat invincible. As we watched other parts of the world go through death and destruction brought on by anything from I.E.D.’s (Improvised Explosive Devises), to human bombs, we felt secure. The first act of aggression was felt on the US Cole but it was so

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Raytheon (RTN) announced better-than-expected 2nd quarter results. The defense electronics giant -- in contrast to the flagship of defense contractors, Lockheed Martin Corporation (LMT) -- reported 25% higher EPS of $1.24 over the year-ago quarter. Lockheed Martin reported 13% lower EPS over the year-ago quarter. While Lockheed was swept away by pension blues, Raytheon gained $11 million during the quarter from pension adjustments. The Details Raytheon exceeded both our and market expectations of $1.13 for the quarter. Operating income fell marginally year-over-year (1.9%) in the Integrated Defense Systems (IDS) and Missile Systems (MS, 7%) segments. This was more than made up by Network Centric Systems (NCS, 12.6%), Space and Airborne Systems (SAS, 24.1%) and Technical Services (TS, 17.8%), along with steady Intelligence and Information Systems (IIS). On the revenue front, although Raytheon grew 4% during the quarter to $6.1 billion, it failed to ...

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL - May 4, 2009 - Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Sepracor, Inc. (SEPR), Raytheon Co. (RTN), AstraZeneca PLC (AZN), GATX Corporation (GMT) and Tetra Tech, Inc. (TTEK).

Get the most recent insight from Zacks Equity Research with the free Profit from the Pros newsletter: http://at.zacks.com/?id=4579.

Here are highlights from Friday's Analyst Blog:

Sepracor Building a Base

Business fundamentals at Sepracor, Inc. (SEPR) have been poor over the past several quarters. Lunesta growth disappointed throughout 2008 and guidance for 2009 assumes sales will decline between 5% and 10%.

Likewise, Xopenex and Xopenex HFA also disappointed

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