Since the beginning of the year, Boeing Co.’s (NYSE: BA) share price has dropped about 0.2%, which might ordinarily be bad news, but compared with the stock’s 4.9% decline in 2014, investors have to be encouraged, if not happy.

Boeing’s dividend-adjusted performance in 2014 was even worse — a negative 2.6%. In 2015 the total expected upside is nearly 18%, nearly double the expectation for total upside of 10% in 2014, and we see how that turned out. The difference is that in 2014 Boeing was coming off a big 2013, during which the company posted a total gain of more than 80%.

When Boeing reported fourth-quarter 2013 earnings more than a year ago, the company forecast 2014 earnings per share and revenues well below analysts’ consensus expectations and the stock price plunged. A year later, when Boeing reported fourth-quarter 2014 earnings, the earnings per share total for the year was more than $1 a share higher than the earlier guidance, and revenues finished the year about $250 million higher.

For 2015 Boeing is forecasting earnings per share of in a range of $8.20 to $8.40 (vs. $8.60 in 2014) on revenues in a range of $94.5 billion to $96.5 billion (vs. $90.76 billion in 2014). The company also said it would deliver 750 to 755 commercial aircraft in 2015, up from a record-setting 723 in 2014. Shares jumped nearly 12% and posted a new two-year high.

Over the two years through Friday’s close, Boeing’s shares are up more than 90%, compared with a gain of about 36% for the S&P 500 in the same period. Virtually all the growth came in 2013, the year the company began delivering its 787 Dreamliner in decent numbers. Last year was a year for positioning, and 2015 appears to be another year for share price growth, although not anything like 2013.

ALSO READ: The Bullish and Bearish Case for Boeing in 2015

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