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

Southwest Airlines (NYSE:LUV) released 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 business 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%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned ($0.27) earnings per share.

Southwest Airlines Stock Down 0.8 %

LUV traded down $0.23 during trading hours on Friday, reaching $27.03. 16,106,007 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 9,102,757. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $30.34 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $28.53. The company has a market cap of $16.17 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 42.91, a PEG 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 current ratio of 1.09 and a quick ratio of 1.07.

Southwest Airlines Announces Dividend

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

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

LUV has been the topic of several research reports. Evercore ISI reiterated an “inline” rating and issued a $35.00 price target on shares of Southwest Airlines in a research report on Tuesday, January 2nd. Barclays reduced their price objective on shares of Southwest Airlines from $30.00 to $26.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft raised shares of Southwest Airlines from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price objective for the company from $28.00 to $42.00 in a research note on Tuesday, February 20th. Sanford C. Bernstein raised shares of Southwest Airlines from an “underperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and upped their price objective for the company from $26.00 to $32.00 in a research note on Tuesday, February 20th. Finally, TD Cowen reduced their price objective on shares of Southwest Airlines from $26.00 to $25.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday. Four 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. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price 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.