Everyone is focused on the popularity of following Boeing (NYSE: BA) and its recent development in new orders. After years of being compressed below any reasonable fairness, its stock is finally looking to break out into a new bullish trend. Closing 2023 at new yearly highs may only be the beginning of that name.
The industry is definitely supporting a continuation of this trend, or rather, a bullish breakout of the manufacturing sector in the United States economy. You see, now that the FED is considering rolling out interest rate cuts in 2024, it is likely that the ISM Manufacturing PMI index, which has contracted over the past year, will finally start to boom again.
To save you some time, the transportation equipment industry (namely those companies focused on aerospace) is booming according to the ISM reports; this is why stocks like Spirit AeroSystems (NYSE: SPR) are among some found in that space set to boom, but there's a specific reason coming this quarter.
All roads lead here
Keeping things logical and professional, here's why Spirit suddenly became a stock to keep on your watchlist, especially this quarter. Knowing how rate cuts could send the PMI back into expansion territory, then you understand that any industry that deals with manufacturing will see increased profits in the next few months.
This is precisely why analysts at The Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE: GS) have mentioned this same manufacturing breakout in their 2024 economic outlook reports. Now that you have confirmation from one of Wall Street's most respected advisors, it is time to go digging, or rather, read what MarketBeat has dug up for you today.
So, why transportation equipment? While most industries have been in a contraction within the manufacturing PMI, the transportation equipment space has been pushing out a consecutive quarter of accelerating growth. This is particularly important considering that it is coming off of previous contractions, aligning the trend with the expected breakout of the manufacturing sector.
While the FED's mission to reduce inflation includes reducing employment in the country, the transportation equipment industry added 1.4 thousand jobs in the past month, according to the employment situation report. Okay, so the industry is getting hot, but why, of all the companies in it, should you consider Spirit?
Here's your edge
Spreading out the peer group among transportation and manufacturing stocks, it will become clear what money likes - and dislikes - within the space. Since you have reasons to be long the sector, you should focus on what money likes here to place the odds in your favor.
First of all, lower interest rates mean likely growth in the economy and company earnings, so you are looking for outliers in this space that can offer you above-average growth for the future. The average earnings per share growth in the industry stands at 15.8% for the next twelve months, guess what:
Analysts are projecting EPS growth of 123.7% for Spirit in the next twelve months, that's nearly ten times larger than the industry average! But is the market buying into these projections? One way to find out.
The forward price-to-earnings ratio is a way to gauge what markets are willing to pay today for a stock's future earnings or a sector. So, it would make sense that investors would be willing to pay a higher price today for the above-average future earnings in Spirit, right?
Bingo, with a 40.2x forward P/E, Spirit stock is valued at a 216.0% premium to the industry's average forward P/E of only 12.7x. It looks like markets agree with these projections so far, but what kind of event are they expecting for such a jump?
Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) analysts suddenly boosted their price targets to $35.0 a share on this stock, which implies a 10.3% upside from today's prices. However, they may have to sit down again and push even higher than that. Here's why that could be the case:
According to Spirit's latest quarterly releases, the company suffered unexpected losses two quarters ago after Boeing suspended their shipset orders due to temporary freezes. Now that Boeing and Airbus (OTCMKTS: EADSY) are back online, some goodwill has been recovered with Spirit.
Management announced a memorandum of agreement signing with Boeing, which would reverse all of these losses and liabilities from the previous contract losses, impacts "to be reflected in fourth quarter financial results." Those results are set to come out on February 7. Unless everyone else has discovered the potential jump in earnings, you now have an edge.
