Southwest Airlines (NYSE:LUV) Announces Quarterly Earnings Results

Southwest Airlines (NYSE:LUV) announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday. The airline reported ($0.36) earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.34) by ($0.02), RTT News reports. Southwest Airlines had a return on equity of 8.91% and a net margin of 1.59%. The business had revenue of $6.33 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $6.42 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted ($0.27) earnings per share. The company’s revenue was up 11.0% compared to the same quarter last year.

Southwest Airlines Trading Down 0.8 %

LUV stock opened at $27.04 on Friday. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $30.34 and a 200 day moving average price of $28.53. Southwest Airlines has a fifty-two week low of $21.91 and a fifty-two week high of $39.53. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.78, a quick ratio of 1.07 and a current ratio of 1.09. The firm has a market cap of $16.17 billion, a PE ratio of 42.91, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.96 and a beta of 1.15.

Southwest Airlines Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, March 27th. Investors of record on Wednesday, March 6th were issued a $0.18 dividend. This represents a $0.72 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.66%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, March 5th. Southwest Airlines’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 114.29%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts have recently commented on LUV shares. Barclays dropped their target price on shares of Southwest Airlines from $30.00 to $26.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Friday. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Southwest Airlines from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Friday, April 12th. Sanford C. Bernstein raised shares of Southwest Airlines from an “underperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and increased their price objective for the company from $26.00 to $32.00 in a research report on Tuesday, February 20th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft raised shares of Southwest Airlines from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price objective for the company from $28.00 to $42.00 in a research report on Tuesday, February 20th. Finally, UBS Group began coverage on shares of Southwest Airlines in a research report on Wednesday, March 20th. They set a “buy” rating and a $36.00 price objective on the stock. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have assigned a hold rating and five have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $31.18.

Southwest Airlines Company Profile

Southwest Airlines Co operates as a passenger airline company that provides scheduled air transportation services in the United States and near-international markets. As of December 31, 2023, the company operated a total fleet of 817 Boeing 737 aircraft; 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.