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Boeing Shares Continue Their 2014 Slide

Boeing Co. shares are flying lower in 2014 and Sterne Agee said Tuesday that they're close to becoming a bargain. The airplane builder faces challenges on both sides of its business and it announced last week that 2014 profit would grow less than Wall Street had expected.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Boeing Co. shares are flying lower in 2014 and Sterne Agee said Tuesday that they're close to becoming a bargain.

Shares of Boeing have dropped 10 percent in the new year compared with a 6 percent decline in the Standard & Poor's 500, and they fell another 2 percent Monday to $123.08.

Yet major indexes are tumbling and almost all stocks are in decline, with the Dow Jones falling more than 320 points to start the week.

Analyst Peter Arment said if Boeing shares below $120 during the current market slump, "investors should get very aggressive" about buying, based on his estimate of 2014 and 2015 earnings.

The airplane builder faces challenges on both sides of its business and it announced last week that 2014 profit would grow less than Wall Street had expected.

Boeing's defense business is being hobbled as governments in the U.S. and Europe try to contain military spending. In the commercial jet segment, deliveries in 2014 are off to a slow start, partly because some were rushed into late 2013 but also because accounting for development costs of its new 787 — Boeing calls it the Dreamliner — has cut into profit margins.

It's not as if Boeing isn't busy. Airlines are buying new, more fuel-efficient planes, boosting the order books at Boeing and European rival Airbus. Boeing has increased the production rate on the 787 and its workhorse 737, a mainstay of airline fleets.

Sterne Agee said Boeing delivered about 43 aircraft in January, including just 4 787s, "in line with our assumptions of a slow start to the year." Official figures are due out from the company later this week. Arment said the pace should pick up for the rest of the first quarter, noting that Boeing forecasts 110 deliveries of the 787 this year.

In trading before the market opened Tuesday, shares of Boeing Co. fell $1.08 to $122.

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