CMS Energy Corporation (CMS), Boeing Co (BA) and Sykes Enterprises (SYKE) Had Executives Offload Shares This Week

Boeing Witnessed Some Insider Selling This Week

Boeing Co (NYSE:BA) had two top executives sell shares this week, one of whom, disposed of freshly-vested stock options. Raymond L. Conner, Vice Chairman of Boeing and Chief Executive Officer and President of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, unloaded 8,109 shares on Tuesday at $132.09 apiece, cutting his ownership to 120,176 shares.

The recent insider selling comes after the aircraft manufacturer released its first-quarter earnings report. Boeing’s earnings from operations for the first quarter decreased $584 million year-on-year to $1.03 billion, while operating margins dropped to 7.2% from 10.5% year-over-year. The decrease in earnings and operating margins was mainly driven by an additional reach-forward loss of $162 million related to the KC-46A Tanker, which is developed from the company’s 767 wide-body passenger jet. This after-tax charge follows a $536 million post-tax charge announced in July, which was said to reflect higher engineering and manufacturing costs to complete the tanker’s development, certification and initial production. The first-quarter earnings were also impacted by higher research and development costs related to the 777X and an additional one-off charge related to the 747 long-haul jet.

Boeing and other aircraft manufacturers in the commercial space have been facing lower-than-expected demand for large commercial passenger and freighter aircraft, which resulted in fewer orders than previously anticipated. Therefore, Boeing plans to eliminate 4,000 jobs from its commercial division by the end of the year. Boeing shares are down 8% since the beginning of 2016 and trade at a forward PE multiple of 13.9, which is below the comparable ratio of 16.5 for the aerospace and defense sector. Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management owns 220,199 shares of Boeing Co (NYSE:BA) as of March 31.