Boeing (click ticker for report: ) updated its ‘Orders and Deliveries‘ page on its website this week, and we were pleased to see a nice uptick in orders. We keep a close eye on commercial aircraft orders as the pace remains a key driver of sentiment within the aerospace industry, even though Boeing and Airbus are effectively “sold out” for at least the next 12 months. According to the disclosure, the plane-maker has booked roughly 428 net orders through May 21 of this year, which puts the aerospace giant well on its way to achieving a book-to-bill north of 1 (signaling backlog expansion).
Though our positive thesis on the aerospace supply chain–AAR (AIR), Astronics (ATRO), Rockwell Collins (COL), HEICO (HEI), Hexcel Corp (HXL), Precision Castparts (PCP), Spirit AeroSystems (SPR), Teledyne (TDY), Textron (TXT)–is more a function of the large aircraft-making duopoly executing on its existing and burgeoning commercial backlog of unfulfilled deliveries, we like news. The news is also a notable positive for a few large conglomerates, including jet-engine maker General Electric (GE), diversified aerospace systems supplier Honeywell (HON), and Pratt & Whitney owner United Tech (UTX), which only recently doubled down on future aerospace demand via its timely acquisition of Goodrich in September 2011. The order flow at Boeing further confirms our positive thesis on the aerospace sector, and we are maintaining our positions in Astronics and Precision Castparts in the portfolio of our Best Ideas Newsletter (Image Source: Boeing).
