The ‘Best Boeing Salesman’ Is at Work in Asia. The Stock Is Up.

President Donald Trump disembarks at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport on Monday. (Takashi Aoyama/Getty Images)

Key Points

• Boeing stock rose 0.8% as President Trump’s Asia visit led to announcements for 125 new jet orders from Asian airlines.
• Boeing’s 2024 jet orders totaled 821, exceeding 569 in 2024, with 28% of its backlog destined for Asia.
• Regulators increased Boeing’s 737 MAX production limit to 42 jets monthly from 38, following a 2024 incident.

Boeing stock rose Monday, ahead of this week’s earnings report, as President Donald Trump’s arrival in Asia brought more agreements to buy the company’s jets.

Shares of the commercial jet maker added 0.8%, closing at $223, while the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.2% and 0.7%, respectively.

The “Best Boeing salesman strikes again,” wrote Jefferies analyst Sheila Kahyaoglu in a Monday report. She tallied announcements for 125 new jets from Asian airlines, noting that some were a reiteration of prior activity.

Trump is visiting Asia for talks that will culminate in his meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping in South Korea on Thursday.

About 28% of Boeing’s backlog is destined for Asia, according to Jefferies.

Trump has made persuading other countries to buy Boeing jets a priority in his trade talks, announcing deals in Europe and the Middle East earlier this year. That appears to have had some effect. Through September, Boeing had taken in orders for 821 jets, more than the 569 it received for all of 2024.

While orders don’t always move Boeing stock, it is good to have new business coming in. Still, Boeing’s challenge right now isn’t demand. Its backlog of orders, sitting at about 6,600 planes, is fine.

The focus is on production because a January 2024 incident in which an emergency-door plug blew out while a 737 MAX 9 plane was in flight has put manufacturing quality under a microscope. Regulators limited the number of 737 MAX jets Boeing was allowed to produce each month.

The result of the increased regulatory scrutiny and Boeing’s efforts to improve quality was that it delivered just under 350 planes in 2024.

Now, regulators have begun to increase the limit. Boeing can make 42 MAX jets a month, up from the prior cap of 38. The company is expected to deliver almost 600 planes in 2025 and 675 planes in 2026, but that would still be significantly less than the more than 800 jets Boeing delivered in 2018. Wall Street sees Boeing reaching that level again in either 2027 or 2028.

Investors will be looking for updates on many issues, including production, when Boeing reports third-quarter earnings on Oct. 29. Wall Street is looking for commercial aerospace sales of $11.1 billion, up from $7.4 billion in the third quarter of 2024.

Kahyaoglu, for her part, rates Boeing shares Buy and has a $255 price target for the stock. Overall, 81% of analysts covering Boeing stock rate shares at Buy, according to FactSet. The average Buy-rating ratio for stocks in the S&P 500 is about 55%. The average analyst price target for Boeing shares is about $258.

Coming into Monday trading, Boeing shares were up about 25% year to date.

Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com