As Boeing Goes, So Goes the Stock Market<br />In Boeing’s earnings conference call last month, Mr. Muilenberg noted<br />that air passenger traffic had outpaced global economic growth this year, and that air cargo traffic was up a solid 10 percent for the first five months of the year.<br />“Boeing definitely represents one of the big multinational companies<br />that is benefiting from global economic growth,” said Michael Arone, a managing director and investment strategist at State Street Global Advisors.<br />“At a time of sluggish growth in the economy and top line revenue growth, companies<br />have been very adept at managing costs and maintaining margins,” Mr. Arone said.<br />“That’s true of many large manufacturers,” Mr. Arone said, which is why large-capitalization stocks have done better this<br />year than their small-cap counterparts, which typically don’t make products that require large capital expenditures.<br />And the broad economic forces driving Boeing’s gains are lifting the earnings at many large<br />multinational companies, which is in turn driving the major stock indexes to new heights.<br />In February he posed in front of a newly minted 787 Dreamliner at Boeing’s sprawling manufacturing plant<br />in North Charleston, S. C., saying he was there “to celebrate jobs.” He added, “God bless Boeing.”<br />“You should have seen the Boeing executives fawning over Trump in South Carolina,” Mr. Aboulafia said.
