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

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

Southwest Airlines Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:LUV opened at $27.04 on Friday. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $30.34 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $28.53. The stock 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. 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 has a one year low of $21.91 and a one year high of $39.53.

Southwest Airlines Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, March 27th. Shareholders 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 was Tuesday, March 5th. Southwest Airlines’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 114.29%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several analysts have recently weighed in on LUV shares. Jefferies Financial Group raised Southwest Airlines from an “underperform” rating to a “hold” rating and boosted their target price for the company from $20.00 to $28.00 in a report on Wednesday, March 13th. UBS Group assumed coverage on Southwest Airlines in a research note on Wednesday, March 20th. They set a “buy” rating and a $36.00 price objective for the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price objective on Southwest Airlines from $24.00 to $29.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, January 26th. TD Cowen reduced their price objective on Southwest Airlines from $26.00 to $25.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research note on Friday. Finally, Barclays dropped their target price on Southwest Airlines from $30.00 to $26.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have assigned a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average 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.