Boeing (BA)

The sleeper story here isn't the headline multi-year FCF framework, it's that defense is becoming Boeing's most reliable growth and margin engine while commercial continues to disappoint, with Ortberg himself flagging it as a little bit of a sleeper and growth guidance quietly upgraded from low to middle single digits. The obvious headline, a first-ever $2B/$3B/$6B/$10B FCF roadmap through 2029, is really a one-year slip in disguise, as CFO Jay Malave admitted directly: "I kind of look at it as almost like from expectations, more of a one year shift to the right". The binding constraint remains the same as it's been for two years, 737 wing production stability, management conceding it is taking longer than expected to demonstrate performance at rate 47, which now pushes rate 52 to the back half of 2027 and underwrites the entire cash ramp. My view changes if VC-25B resurfaces with a new charge (it got zero mentions this quarter after a $280M hit last quarter), or if debt, flat at $45.9B after an active paydown narrative just one quarter ago, starts climbing instead of stabilizing.