Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE:LUV) Given Consensus Recommendation of “Hold” by Brokerages

Shares of Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE:LUV) have been assigned an average recommendation of “Hold” from the seventeen brokerages that are covering the stock, MarketBeat.com reports. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have assigned a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company. The average twelve-month price objective among analysts that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $32.88.

LUV has been the topic of several analyst reports. Barclays reduced their target price on Southwest Airlines from $34.00 to $27.00 in a report on Thursday, October 5th. The Goldman Sachs Group reduced their target price on Southwest Airlines from $34.00 to $30.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, August 17th. Citigroup reduced their target price on Southwest Airlines from $32.75 to $28.00 in a report on Wednesday, October 4th. Sanford C. Bernstein reduced their price objective on Southwest Airlines from $32.00 to $28.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, September 26th. Finally, Susquehanna reduced their price objective on Southwest Airlines from $25.00 to $23.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in Southwest Airlines by 2.0% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 63,028,745 shares of the airline’s stock worth $2,886,717,000 after purchasing an additional 1,213,767 shares during the last quarter. Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich boosted its position in Southwest Airlines by 74,645.8% in the second quarter. Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich now owns 29,236,805 shares of the airline’s stock worth $1,058,665,000 after purchasing an additional 29,197,690 shares during the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD boosted its position in Southwest Airlines by 39.7% in the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 21,991,802 shares of the airline’s stock worth $715,615,000 after purchasing an additional 6,244,136 shares during the last quarter. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. boosted its position in Southwest Airlines by 7.5% in the fourth quarter. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. now owns 18,213,320 shares of the airline’s stock worth $613,243,000 after purchasing an additional 1,269,782 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC boosted its position in Southwest Airlines by 91,675.0% in the fourth quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 15,296,139 shares of the airline’s stock worth $515,021,000 after purchasing an additional 15,279,472 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 78.22% of the company’s stock.

Southwest Airlines Stock Up 4.2 %

LUV stock opened at $23.16 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.72, a current ratio of 1.21 and a quick ratio of 1.14. The stock has a market capitalization of $13.81 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.88, a PEG ratio of 0.90 and a beta of 1.16. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $27.24 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $30.85. Southwest Airlines has a fifty-two week low of $21.91 and a fifty-two week high of $40.38.

Southwest Airlines (NYSE:LUV) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, October 26th. The airline reported $0.38 earnings per share for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of $0.38. The firm had revenue of $6.53 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $6.56 billion. Southwest Airlines had a return on equity of 5.08% and a net margin of 1.95%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 4.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $0.50 EPS. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Southwest Airlines will post 1.51 earnings per share for the current year.

About Southwest Airlines

Southwest Airlines Co operates as a passenger airline company that provide scheduled air transportation services in the United States and near-international markets. As of December 31, 2022, the company operated a total fleet of 770 Boeing 737 aircrafts; and served 121 destinations in 42 states, the District of Columbia, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, as well as ten near-international countries, including Mexico, Jamaica, the Bahamas, Aruba, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Belize, Cuba, the Cayman Islands, and Turks and Caicos.