Amid all the fine financial news Boeing (BA) can tout—a record order backlog, robust profit margins, a higher profit outlook—one of the airplane maker’s dreariest performers continues to be its highest-tech, most fuel-efficient product: the 787 Dreamliner.

Boeing continues to lose money on each Dreamliner it builds. The company expects to reach the break-even point on some models turned out by its 787 program in 2015. In the most recent quarter, production costs rose again for the 787, which has become one of Boeing’s most popular models due to its lightweight carbon composite airframe and the resulting lower fuel burn. The program’s deferred production cost, an accounting measure of how efficient an assembly program becomes over time, rose 4 percent, to $25.2 billion, in the third quarter, topping the $25 billion cap Boeing had forecast for the 787 program.

Of course, Boeing officials insist the 787′s assembly costs will continue to drop over time as workers improve the efficiencies of the line and the rate at which they can build new planes. But the airplane—which suffered several delays before its 2011 introduction and then a grounding due to battery fires—remains a critical drag to the commercial airplane division’s financial performance. Wall Street analysts are ready to see black ink in the program and pressed Boeing officials repeatedly on Wednesday, Oct. 22, about how quickly the 787 can stop bleeding cash.

David Fuller's view

Boeing became very overextended relative to its 200-day (40-week) MA in 4Q 2013 and fell back sharply from its high in January 2014.  Such overextensions are often followed by at least a medium-term period of underperformance and analysts will have some understandable concerns over the profitability of the 787 Dreamliner. 

Currently, there are still some risks for Boeing from both its toppy chart pattern above and also the broader stock market at this time.  We need to see this year’s series of most lower highs and somewhat lower lows replaced by at least one higher high and higher low on this weekly chart to signal that demand is regaining the upper hand.  

Over the longer-term, I think Boeing will remain a promising share for the 21^st century.  It benefits from all the long-term bullish factors, such as accelerated technological innovation, lower fuel costs, globalisation, and the rapidly increasing global middle classes.  It has few serious competitors, not least because of high entry costs, and it would require management carelessness to lose its pre-eminence.