BA does almost nothing right. So why is the stock up 52%? We have all heard the old saw as to how “the market climbs a wall of worry.” There is, of course, an inherent truth in this. Investors always take on a bit of risk in exchange for their gains. One might imagine that this is a well-reasoned and well-researched risk. Yeah, well, you’d probably be wrong about that. For most of the past eight months, most investors haven’t even shown the common rules of life we try to teach grade school kids, like “look both ways before you cross the street,” or “don’t trust that weird guy in the rusty old Buick ...

The week of June 26th was very bad to Boeing. After continued reassurance from CEO Jim McNerney that the company’s much anticipated (and previously delayed) Dreamliner 787 would be delivered by the 23rd, Boeing once again came up short. To investors, this was simply one slip-up too many… and a company that cannot fulfill promises is a company worth selling. Making matters worse, the next day, the U.S. Department of Defense terminated the land warfare weapons program headed by BA’s Integrated Defense Systems unit worth an estimated $160 billion. Thinking that there was no possible way to add more grief onto shares of Boeing, Qantas Airways canceled orders for 15 Boeing 787 Dreamliners after being “disappointed” by Boeing’s management.

Shares slid on the day of the initial 787 delay by 6.46%. On the day of the

...

The Boeing Co. (BA). is pushing back the schedule of its troubled 787 Dreamliner jet program by about six months as it works to unwind delays caused by the recently concluded union-machinists strike, and by thousands of improperly installed fasteners on the first couple of jetliners on the production line. This puts the high-profile airliner program about two years behind schedule.

The Chicago-based aerospace giant also has unveiled a series of management changes it says will improve supervision of both supply-chain management and production quality at improving oversight of supply-chain and quality problems that led to delays on all of Boeing’s jet programs in recent months.

With the move, the fuel-efficient jet’s first flight has been shifted into the second quarter of 2009 and first delivery into the first quarter of 2010. Prior to the strike that halted much of the company’s commercial airplane work from early September into November,

...

The Boeing Co. (BA) may further delay first deliveries of its flagship 787 Dreamliner by at least six months – meaning the jet will enter service more than two years later than was originally projected – because of the recently concluded strike by union machinists and several other problems, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Sources told the Journal that the first deliveries of the fuel-efficient jet might not occur until the summer of 2010. Boeing’s most recent schedule called for initial deliveries in the third quarter of 2009. Officials with the Chicago-based aerospace giant are expected to announce the newest delays later this month, after making certain of the new timetable, the newspaper said.

A Recent Record of Costly Delays

Boeing has long prided itself for delivering new aircraft on time. That’s why escalating problems with the highly complex Dreamliner – a fuel-efficient jetliner that can carry between

...