As Boeing Goes, So Goes the Stock Market
In Boeing’s earnings conference call last month, Mr. Muilenberg noted
that air passenger traffic had outpaced global economic growth this year, and that air cargo traffic was up a solid 10 percent for the first five months of the year.
“Boeing definitely represents one of the big multinational companies
that is benefiting from global economic growth,” said Michael Arone, a managing director and investment strategist at State Street Global Advisors.
“At a time of sluggish growth in the economy and top line revenue growth, companies
have been very adept at managing costs and maintaining margins,” Mr. Arone said.
“That’s true of many large manufacturers,” Mr. Arone said, which is why large-capitalization stocks have done better this
year than their small-cap counterparts, which typically don’t make products that require large capital expenditures.
And the broad economic forces driving Boeing’s gains are lifting the earnings at many large
multinational companies, which is in turn driving the major stock indexes to new heights.
In February he posed in front of a newly minted 787 Dreamliner at Boeing’s sprawling manufacturing plant
in North Charleston, S. C., saying he was there “to celebrate jobs.” He added, “God bless Boeing.”
“You should have seen the Boeing executives fawning over Trump in South Carolina,” Mr. Aboulafia said.
