The market ignored intervention on behalf of Japan to drive down the value of the yen and an anemic improvement in August industrial output, which was only up .2%, to post a very modest gain for the day.

Today's closing bell numbers:

Dow Jones 10,572.73 +46.24 (0.44%)
S&P 500 1,125.07 +3.97 (0.35%)
Nasdaq 2,301.32 +11.55 (0.50%)

This constitutes multiple 'rays of light:' United Airlines (UAUA) Tuesday announced that it would acquire 50 new planes. Twenty five are The Boeing Company (BA) 787 Dreamliners and twenty five Airbus A350 XWBs -- widebody planes with a list price of $9 billion, CNNMoney.com reported.

And Wednesday Delta Air Lines Inc. (DAL) and United indicated that business travel is improving and that the worst of the travel demand slump was over, Bloomberg News reported.

Under the radar: Some trends are obvious enough and visible to all investors. Others are more-subtle, but are just as potent, and these often slip 'under the radar.'

Case in point: In another sign of an improving global economy, Airbus' Chief Operating Officer John Leahy has indicated that the market for commercial aircraft deliveries has improved, Bloomberg News reported.

"Six months, nine months ago, people were talking about delaying aircraft, Leahy told Bloomberg News at briefing at the Dubai air show. "I'm not hearing anything like that today."

Late Tuesday, aerospace firm Boeing (BA) announced its first major deal at the Dubai Airshow. While this is good news for BA, the bad news is that the majority of the $2 billion of deals available at the show went to rival Airbus. BA revealed nearly $900 million of deals with Algerian airlines, while Airbus announced $1.25 billion of confirmed orders.

These orders bring the total dollar amount of orders at the Airshow to $5.67 billion for 42 aircraft. This total is a mere pittance compared to the $155.5 billion worth of deals scored in 2007. BA's Randy Tinseth noted, "it's a completely different market from two years ago," sentiment agreed upon by Airbus's CEO Tom Enders.

Imagine being able to fetch water when you need it mid-flight? Or grab a snack between meals? As I found recently, you get a bit more freedom within the confines of the walls of the largest commercial aircraft.

My first flight aboard the gigantic Airbus 380 was approached with hesitance and fear of spending the next half-day in a middle seat. That's a fear, I'm sure, we've all had at least once in the past. My fear tempered when I spotted a window-seat behind my assigned row. The last row, but a window in the last is much better than a middle in the second-to-last!

The jet age is starting to re-assert itself, which is why I'm Reiterating my Buy rating for United Technologies (NYSE: UTX), first recommended on February 13, 2009 at a price of $47.09. If you bought UTX in February, you're up about 35%.

The projected 3-4% FY2010 revenue growth for UTX is looking a tad low, due to large order backlogs for both Boeing (NYSE: BA) and Airbus. Wall Street had factored-in some order deferments/cancellations, and that did weigh on United Technologies shares this summer, but now it appears the D/Cs will not be as large, which removes a potential revenue cloud.

Kudos to The Boeing Company (NYSE: BA): when a new technology won't do (for the immediate future, anyway), they re-vamp and re-deploy some of the old to best a competitor.

Stung by production and first flight delays to its next-generation 787 Dreamliner, Boeing announced Tuesday that it may build a new wing for the 777, an existing long-range, wide-body airliner, Bloomberg News reported. Boeing's shares fell 65 cents to $48.87 Tuesday afternoon.

Airbus is asking for government assistance, which raises the question of how bad the airline manufacturing industry will get. Not only has Boeing (NYSE: BA) been hurt by labor problems and a strike, but the most damage to its finances will come as airlines around the world cut orders already in place and stop making new orders.

According to the AP, "A senior Airbus official says the plane maker wants financing help from other European governments following a $6.4 billion aid package from France last month."

Is it imaginable that Boeing could need money? A year ago, no one believed that Detroit would need a dime.

The traditional response -- and defense -- for a late delivery is 'Better late than never." Regarding The Boeing Company's (NYSE: BA) delayed 787 Dreamliner, the stance is, 'Better be great, or never.' The Dreamliner, Boeing's next-generation wide-body, has been dubbed the '7-Late-7,' due to the company's four delivery delays that have pushed back its first delivery to Q1 2010.

From a commercial aviation standpoint, delaying a delivering is like showing up late for the first semester of classes at college. In the 787's case, Boeing looks like it will arrive on campus about four weeks into the semester, so says stock analyst C. Leonard Bauer.

With the company having reached a tentative, new, 4-year contract agreement with its engineers, it appears Boeing will avoid a second, internecine work stoppage.

What Boeing will not be able to do, however, is avoid a decidedly downward revision in company and stock performance expectations, so says Stock Analyst C. Leonard Bauer.

U.S. business: A difficult decade

Bauer, not one to wax philosophic, nevertheless takes a historian's-like view of Boeing's actions -- and the actions of numerous other companies -- in recent years.

"It's as if we decided as a nation to place all of the most idiotic, self-defeating, and economically-damaging business decisions in one decade," Bauer said. "It's as if the whole business community attended the wrong business school." The Boeing Company's (NYSE: BA) shares rose 45 cents to $42.51 in Monday afternoon trading.

In the quarters ahead, new autos may not be the only inventory item piling up.

A 'really big ticket item' -- new commercial airplanes -- may start piling up, as well. Boeing and Airbus may end up with as many as 200 new planes without buyers in 2009 because airlines are unable to obtain funds to pay for them, due to the credit crunch.

In the second half of 2008, banks and other sources of capital decreased lending to airlines -- and to just about everyone else, it seems -- on concerns the loans won't be paid back. Other banks are decreasing lending primarily as a means of rebuilding damaged balance sheets.

The lending cutback may create a funding gap of about $65 billion at Boeing next year, and a $20 billion gap at Airbus. Boeing Capital Corp., the airplane manufacturing giant's financing unit, is expected to make $1 billion in loans to customers in 2009.

Another difficult data point for Boeing's 787 Dreamliner.

Boeing announced that it will delay the first test flight of its next-generation jetliner, the 787 Dreamliner, beyond Q4, citing the recently-ended machinists strike, Bloomberg News reported.

Further, the company set no new time frame for the plane, the test flight of which has already been delayed three times and is currently 15 months behind schedule, Bloomberg News reported. An eight-week strike with the machinists union, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, was settled November 2, with machinists approving a new contract shortly thereafter.

The Boeing Company's (NYSE: BA) shares slid $4.09 to $49.53 Wednesday afternoon amid a broader market sell-off.

One of the little-noticed political endorsements from last week was that of former Ronald Reagan chief of staff, Kenneth Duberstein, who broke with his party to endorse Barack Obama. Why did he do this? The far more influential, Colin Powell, helped break the ice for Duberstein. And Duberstein was clearly not thrilled with the pick of the delightfully chipper, Sarah Palin, as VP, telling MSNBC, "Even at McDonalds (NYSE: MCD), you're interviewed three times before you're given a job."

But it could be that Duberstein had a much more practical business reason for endorsing Obama -- a $35 billion contract for Boeing Inc. (NYSE: BA) of which he is a director. And Boeing stands to lose that contract if McCain is elected. How so? John McCain's national finance committee chair, Tom Loeffler, is a lobbyist for a French company that is competing with Boeing for the contract to build airborne refueling tankers for the Air Force. McCain's campaign received $14,000 in contributions from workers at EADS, the parent of France's Airbus, which is competing against Boeing in a joint bid with Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC) for the contract.

My sources suggested that McCain was behind the process irregularities that caused the General Accounting Office (GAO) to recommend that the bidding process be canceled and the contract rebid back in June. And there's little doubt that if McCain wins tomorrow's election, he is in the tanker tank for Airbus and it will cost Boeing the contract. So could Duberstein believe that Obama is a better candidate for the country? Absolutely. And would an Obama victory be better for Boeing than for France's Airbus? Sure.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. Portfolio will publish his book about Boeing, You Can't Order Change: Lessons from Jim McNerney's Turnaround at Boeing, in December 2008. He has no financial interest in the securities mentioned.

What a September.

The Yankees fade during the stretch and don't make the play-offs. And Yankee Stadium, The House That Ruth Built, has closed, forever. Meanwhile, the stock market frequently looks like it wants to close.

Well, at least Boeing (NYSE: BA) is doing well. No, wait, Boeing too is closed, temporarily, due to a strike.

And now there's word that Boeing will reassess its 787 Dreamliner delivery schedule for the Japanese market once the ongoing strike ends, Reuters reported Tuesday.

Analysts fear that a failure of Boeing and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers to reach an agreement that has idled 27,000 machines could further push-back the 787's delivery timetable. The IAM strike began September 6. Boeing has already delayed delivery of its next-generation 787 airplane by 18 months. Boeing's shares rose $1.52 to $56.99 Tuesday afternoon amid a broader market rally.

Not a September Sinatra would sing about

"I guess this September was meant to be a month with all bad news, because it certainly seems that way," Stock Analyst C. Leonard Bauer said. "Boeing was one of the few bright spots on a pretty dismal domestic economic landscape. Great new products, solid orders, a good future for the company and the stock. But then management and the union can't agree on compensation. Pretty sad."

It is hard to do business, make sales, and drive profits when your company is shut down by a strike. It also aids the competition.

Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) is finding that out the hard way. According to Bloomberg, "Airbus SAS, starting its first aircraft assembly today outside Europe, said it may buy up to $1 billion of components from China by 2020, as the world's most populous nation may need 3,000 planes in the next 20 years."

By putting a plant inside China and offering to put money into the economy, Airbus is making best friends with the central government, a move that is almost certain to garner significant orders from the nation's commercial airlines.

Boeing management made a huge mistake by allowing its machinists to go out on strike instead of improving their compensation packages enough to keep the company operating. Boeing said that its margins could be hurt by the size of the deal the union wanted. The machinists knew better. They could see the size of the Boeing back-orders for products like the new Dreamliner going out for years and year driving higher and higher sales.

Each day that the strike goes on, Boeing risks losing more customers to Airbus. Management has not done the shareholders any favors.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.