Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE:LUV) Stock Position Reduced by Swiss National Bank

Swiss National Bank cut its stake in shares of Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE:LUV) by 9.2% during the second quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 534,800 shares of the airline’s stock after selling 54,400 shares during the period. Swiss National Bank owned about 0.09% of Southwest Airlines worth $19,365,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other large investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. grew 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 acquiring an additional 1,213,767 shares in the last quarter. Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich grew 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 acquiring an additional 29,197,690 shares in the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD grew 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 acquiring an additional 6,244,136 shares in the last quarter. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. grew 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 acquiring an additional 1,269,782 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC grew 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 acquiring an additional 15,279,472 shares in the last quarter. 78.22% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms have commented on LUV. Evercore ISI decreased their target price on shares of Southwest Airlines from $42.00 to $38.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, August 28th. BNP Paribas downgraded shares of Southwest Airlines from a “neutral” rating to an “underperform” rating and set a $20.00 price objective for the company. in a report on Friday, November 10th. StockNews.com began coverage on shares of Southwest Airlines in a report on Thursday, October 5th. They set a “hold” rating for the company. Sanford C. Bernstein decreased their price objective on shares of Southwest Airlines from $32.00 to $28.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, September 26th. Finally, Redburn Partners downgraded shares of Southwest Airlines from a “neutral” rating to a “sell” rating and set a $27.00 price objective for the company. in a report on Monday, August 7th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have given a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $32.06.

Southwest Airlines Trading Up 2.1 %

LUV stock opened at $24.81 on Monday. Southwest Airlines Co. has a 1-year low of $21.91 and a 1-year high of $40.38. The firm has a market cap of $14.79 billion, a P/E ratio of 33.08, a P/E/G ratio of 1.08 and a beta of 1.16. The business’s 50 day moving average is $25.70 and its 200-day moving average is $30.27. The company has a current ratio of 1.21, a quick ratio of 1.14 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.72.

Southwest Airlines (NYSE:LUV) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, October 26th. The airline reported $0.38 earnings per share for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $0.38. Southwest Airlines had a return on equity of 5.08% and a net margin of 1.95%. The company had revenue of $6.53 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $6.56 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $0.50 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 4.9% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities analysts anticipate that Southwest Airlines Co. will post 1.38 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Southwest Airlines Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, January 11th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, December 21st will be issued a $0.18 dividend. This represents a $0.72 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.90%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, December 20th. Southwest Airlines’s payout ratio is currently 96.00%.

Southwest Airlines Company Profile

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.