Boeing shares rose as investors bet that CEO Kelly Ortberg’s expected presence on President Donald Trump’s China trip could help revive a long-stalled aircraft order from Chinese airlines, potentially marking the company’s first major Chinese purchase agreement in nearly nine years.
The stock climbed more than 2% in Thursday trading, after touching an intraday high of $236.52. Its market capitalization stood at about $181.93 billion, with intraday volume at 4.76 million shares.
The rally followed reports that Ortberg is set to join Trump’s China visit, with traders pricing in the possibility of a Chinese aircraft order covering narrow-body and wide-body jets. Industry sources have said a potential deal could include 500 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft plus dozens of wide-body planes.
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Reuters reported in April that Ortberg said Boeing was counting on support from the Trump administration to help close a major order from Chinese airlines. Ortberg said Boeing had reached “a good solution” with Chinese airlines over concerns tied to access to critical spare parts, but also said that without administration support, he did not expect near-term large orders from China.
The potential transaction would be strategically important because China has not made a major Boeing aircraft purchase since 2017. Sen. Steve Daines, leading a bipartisan US delegation in Beijing ahead of the Trump-Xi meeting, said he hoped the leaders’ meeting would produce Boeing jet orders and noted that it had been “about nine years” since a Boeing aircraft purchase in China.
The aircraft talks are embedded inside a wider US-China negotiation that includes agriculture, energy, critical minerals, semiconductors, Taiwan and Iran. US wants China to buy Boeing aircraft as well as US coal, oil and natural gas, while Beijing wants relief on advanced semiconductor curbs and has raised concerns about US restrictions on chipmaking equipment.
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