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Boeing on track for worst month ever, and strategist lays out dangerous path ahead

Boeing on track for worst month ever. Here's where it heads next
VIDEO4:2104:21
Boeing on track for worst month ever. Here's where it heads next

Boeing shares are tumbling.

The aerospace giant is down another 18% on Wednesday, piling on monthly losses of more than 60%. The stock is pacing for its worst month ever and sits firmly at the bottom of the Dow.

Mark Tepper, president of Strategic Wealth Partners, says it could get worse for the beaten-down name.

"No good news at all, and I just really don't think this is a stock where you want to try and call the bottom," Tepper told CNBC's "Trading Nation" on Tuesday. "This is a perfect storm for Boeing. This company is in complete freefall. It could continue to go much lower."

Boeing has been hard hit over the past year as it faced the grounding of its 737 Max after two fatal crashes. The company has requested $60 billion in government aid to weather the hardship as the coronavirus crisis deepens. 

"On top of everything, their asking for a bailout kills investor confidence. So they already have the self-inflicted pain from the 737 Max grounding, you have airlines which either aren't flying, capacity has been cut significantly, or they're near bankruptcy. And then the third thing is their balance sheet, which used to be a fortress, has eroded and now free cash flow is uncertain," said Tepper.

"Given all the question marks we have right now in this economy, now is not the time to try and catch falling knives," he said.

Ari Wald, head of technical analysis at Oppenheimer, says the charts back up Tepper's bearish case.

"The chart we actually shared in December on 'Trading Nation,' where we showed Boeing relative to the S&P 500, at the time we noted this two-year topping pattern," Wald said during the same segment. "Fast forward to today, the update is now it's really just collapsed lower."

Boeing has fallen 72% over the past 12 months, far worse than the S&P 500's 15% decline. 

"This is an important point really for the market broadly. The weak have gotten weaker through the sell-off. The cheapest stocks have been the biggest laggards on the way down," Wald said. "All this is to say that the entire market is trying to find a footing here, but we'd be keen on stocks that rank higher in our relative momentum scores that are from relative strength through the sell-off, and Boeing should be avoided in our work."