Southwest Airlines (NYSE:LUV) Posts Earnings Results, Misses Expectations By $0.02 EPS

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

Southwest Airlines Stock Down 0.8 %

LUV stock traded down $0.23 during mid-day trading on Friday, reaching $27.03. The company had a trading volume of 16,106,007 shares, compared to its average volume of 9,102,757. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $30.34 and a 200 day simple moving average of $28.53. The company has a market capitalization of $16.17 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 42.91, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.96 and a beta of 1.15. 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.

Southwest Airlines Dividend Announcement

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

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts have recently commented on the company. Jefferies Financial Group upgraded Southwest Airlines from an “underperform” rating to a “hold” rating and lifted their price target for the stock from $20.00 to $28.00 in a report on Wednesday, March 13th. Sanford C. Bernstein raised shares of Southwest Airlines from an “underperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and lifted their target price for the stock from $26.00 to $32.00 in a research note on Tuesday, February 20th. Raymond James reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $30.00 price target (down previously from $33.00) on shares of Southwest Airlines in a research note on Friday. Argus raised shares of Southwest Airlines from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $40.00 price target on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, March 12th. Finally, Morgan Stanley decreased their price objective on Southwest Airlines from $40.00 to $38.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, April 5th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have issued a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Southwest Airlines has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $31.18.

About Southwest Airlines

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.