Boeing’s share price: what to expect from Q4 results

When is Boeing’s results date?

Mark your calendars for this Wednesday, 26 January, as prior to the market open Boeing will be releasing its fourth-quarter (Q4) 2021 figures.

Boeing share price: forecasts from Q4 results

If deliveries and orders are anything to go by, it’s been a far stronger year for the airplane maker with 340, more than double 2020’s 157 deliveries. And while that may have given it a chance to capture more market share against Airbus, it still meant the latter took roughly two-thirds of the combined total, dropping from about four-fifths in 2020 as the US manufacturer attempted to claw back lost territory. Boeing managed to win out on gross orders with 909 against Airbus’s 771, though it’s a close call when looking at net orders depending on how it’s calculated. The majority of its orders are deliveries are for the previously grounded 737 MAX.

It missed its earnings per share (EPS) mark last time around with -$0.60 instead of -$0.21 expectations, and this time around they’ve lowered their estimates over the past few months to -$0.30, with revenue expected to be above $17 billion. Analysts are holding a slight buy bias with plenty in the held territory, a somewhat similar picture to what we saw prior to its third-quarter (Q3) earnings release (source: finance.yahoo.com).

Boeing Weekly Chart with key technical indicators

From a technical standpoint and looking at the weekly time frame, long traders have been able to finally catch a slight break – a break in its bear trend channel that is. After spending most of 2021 in a downwards channel with little interruption, the start of this year has given its share price a chance to cross and close above it, in the process briefly going above one of its key long-term weekly moving averages (MA), the 50-day MA, recently recently shy of the upper end of the Bollinger Band, and causing a positive directional movement index (DMI) cross (its DI+ crossing above its DI-). Its average directional movement index (ADX) has remained near the lows in this longer-term time frame and isn’t showing a propensity to trend just yet, with its relative strength index (RSI) well below overbought territory.

That stands in slight contrast with the daily time frame where the technicals paint a slightly more positive picture, with an ADX recently rising to cross into trending territory, a decent margin held by its DI+ over its DI-, and prices recently flirting with its 200-day MA. The oscillations prior and the narrowing of key technical indicators have translated into small price changes resulting in significant technical crosses (and can at times generate signals at a greater rate than usual making some of them false).

Trading Boeing’s Q4 results: weekly technical overview and trading strategies

The daily technicals might be showing a heavily stalling and tested short-term bull trend, but zooming out to the weekly and more will be needed to shift key technical indicators to indicate a direction trending upwards. Consolidation might be a longer-term view when just looking at technicals, though important to note that last time around it was the emergence of Covid-19 Omicron variant throwing a wrench into a chance to trend higher and putting it back into its (now breached) long-term bear trend channel. That means it’ll require a fundamental travel shock be it geopolitical or otherwise for a repeat.

Should the worst be behind us and it could continue its ascent in line with its daily technical overview, while further setbacks would mean tested price gains if not downright bearish declines. That, combined with the fundamental nature of earnings, means contrarian breakouts have a play upon earnings release, otherwise intraweek momentum beyond its key, 1^st and 2^nd Resistance levels might be tested and give conformist reversals the edge.

IG client sentiment* and short interest for Boeing shares

Retail trader bias here has dropped only slightly since October of last year when we had the Q3 earnings preview, still extreme buy and still staggeringly high, down at 95% from 98% prior, and only slight beneficiaries given prices are somewhat higher since, though there have been brief moves below $190 and above $230 in between, the former testing long positions. They’re hoping they’ve seen the last of the bear trend channel that held since roughly March of last year with brief interruptions late last year.

As for short interest, it’s risen slightly since the last preview, from 8,100,000 shares representing about 1.5% of shares floated to 8,870,000 (source: shortsqueeze.com).

*The percentage of IG client accounts with positions in this market that are currently long or short. Calculated to the nearest 1%, as of the start of the week for the outer circle. Inner circle is from the previous earnings preview on Thursday, 21 October 2021.