Can Boeing Stock Jump 40%?

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Boeing (BA) holds orders for thousands of planes. Whether its stock can jump 40% from its $168.18 close on October 27, 2026 depends on how quickly the company can build them. A 40% gain would take the shares to about $235, still below their $252.15 high of January 23, 2026. A gain of that size is not rare for these shares. In 7 of the last 10 calendar years, the stock rose at least that much from one close to a later one within the same year. How fast is Boeing building planes now, and how fast does it plan to go?

Boeing Plans To Build Faster In 2027

Boeing plans to lift production to a rate of 52 a month in the back half of 2027. The company has not yet held steady at its current rate of 47. Management said on its October 27, 2026 call that getting fully stable at 47 is taking longer than expected and will run into 2027. A production rate measures the number of planes of one model Boeing finishes each month. Deliveries happen later when customers take the planes, so a faster production rate reaches deliveries with a lag.

The first signs of progress came in 2026. The FAA certified the 737-7 in July and the larger 737-10 in October. Boeing built planes of both models before certification, and those will start delivering early in 2027. For the 787, management expects to start moving to 10 a month before the end of 2026. The company’s Charleston expansion is meant to support higher rates still, with most of the new capacity coming online late in 2027.

How Big Is Boeing’s Airplane Order Book?

Boeing’s Commercial Airplanes unit ended the fiscal third quarter of 2026 with a record backlog of $612 billion, covering more than 6,300 planes. In fiscal 2025, the unit brought in $41.5 billion of Boeing’s $89.5 billion revenue. That was more than either of the company’s other two units. The order book is nearly 15 times what the unit sold that year.

Management expects the unit’s total deliveries to rise by 10% or more in 2027, similar to 2026. Yet the order book has not lifted the unit’s sales every quarter. In the fiscal third quarter of 2026, revenue for the unit fell 3% from a year earlier. Management attributed this mainly to a less favorable mix of planes delivered.

The stock, meanwhile, has fallen. Boeing’s October 27 close was its lowest of the past year, sitting 33.3% below its highest close reached on January 23, 2026. In the year to October 27, 2026, the stock fell 24.0%, while the S&P 500 returned 15.0%. The stock fell 10.7% on October 27, the day of the call, while the SPDR S&P 500 ETF rose 0.6%.

Where Could Boeing Fall Behind Its Plan?

Boeing has already fallen behind on deliveries. Management said slower progress at the 47-a-month rate will leave 737 deliveries short of their 500-plane target for 2026. Before moving to 52, management said it wants to show sustained performance at the current level and fully test the changes meant to raise output. For the 787 move to 10 a month, management said engine deliveries remain the pacing item.

Timing also came up on the call in a question about why it would take about two years to reach the higher rates behind Boeing’s 2029 targets. Management answered that deliveries lag production. It added that if Boeing can deliver at the higher rates it plans to build at, that would add upside to its $10 billion free cash flow target for 2029.

Boeing is expected to report in January 2027. Management said it will give more detail then on 2027 deliveries for each airplane program. Those delivery numbers are the measure to watch.

How To Act On BA?

Not necessarily on Boeing alone, if your goal is long-term wealth. Wealth is built by owning the companies that keep outperforming, the leaders of their industries, wherever they are. Here are two companies from Boeing’s own industry that have beaten it. Over the five years to October 2026, Lockheed Martin stock rose 115% and ATI stock rose 1012%, while Boeing stock fell 18.6%.

Finding companies like these takes comparison across industries and sectors, and that is what the Trefis High Quality (HQ) Portfolio does. It holds 30 quality companies in equal weight and, since its inception in September 2020, has returned more than 105%, ahead of a benchmark that combines the S&P 500, S&P Mid-cap and Russell 2000. See how we find the leaders.

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