Douglas Lane & Associates LLC Has $932,000 Stock Position in Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE:LUV)

Douglas Lane & Associates LLC lowered its stake in shares of Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE:LUV) by 23.6% during the second quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 32,572 shares of the airline’s stock after selling 10,039 shares during the period. Douglas Lane & Associates LLC’s holdings in Southwest Airlines were worth $932,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Hexagon Capital Partners LLC grew its stake in shares of Southwest Airlines by 374.0% during the fourth quarter. Hexagon Capital Partners LLC now owns 858 shares of the airline’s stock valued at $25,000 after purchasing an additional 677 shares during the last quarter. Capital Advisors Ltd. LLC lifted its holdings in Southwest Airlines by 82.8% during the 4th quarter. Capital Advisors Ltd. LLC now owns 914 shares of the airline’s stock worth $26,000 after buying an additional 414 shares in the last quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. bought a new position in Southwest Airlines in the 4th quarter valued at $29,000. ICA Group Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Southwest Airlines in the 4th quarter valued at $29,000. Finally, Pineridge Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of Southwest Airlines during the fourth quarter worth $32,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 80.82% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

LUV has been the topic of several recent research reports. Melius reiterated a “sell” rating and issued a $26.00 price target on shares of Southwest Airlines in a report on Monday, June 10th. StockNews.com cut shares of Southwest Airlines from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Friday, April 12th. Raymond James reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $30.00 price target (down from $33.00) on shares of Southwest Airlines in a research note on Friday, April 26th. Sanford C. Bernstein reduced their price objective on shares of Southwest Airlines from $26.00 to $24.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reiterated a “hold” rating and set a $29.00 target price (down previously from $32.00) on shares of Southwest Airlines in a research report on Friday, July 26th. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and three have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Southwest Airlines has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $28.39.

Southwest Airlines Stock Up 2.7 %

Shares of NYSE:LUV traded up $0.63 during trading on Tuesday, hitting $24.33. 9,370,793 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 9,562,155. The company has a current ratio of 0.90, a quick ratio of 0.85 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.48. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $27.62 and a 200-day moving average price of $29.06. Southwest Airlines Co. has a 52 week low of $21.91 and a 52 week high of $35.18. The company has a market cap of $14.58 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 39.16, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 15.50 and a beta of 1.15.

Southwest Airlines (NYSE:LUV) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, July 25th. The airline reported $0.58 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.51 by $0.07. The firm had revenue of $7.40 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $7.32 billion. Southwest Airlines had a net margin of 0.41% and a return on equity of 5.92%. The business’s revenue was up 5.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $1.09 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts forecast that Southwest Airlines Co. will post 0.35 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Southwest Airlines Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, September 25th. Investors of record on Wednesday, September 4th will be paid a $0.18 dividend. This represents a $0.72 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.96%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, September 4th. Southwest Airlines’s payout ratio is presently 114.29%.

Southwest Airlines 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.