Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE:LUV) Plans Quarterly Dividend of $0.18

Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE:LUV) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, November 21st,RTT News reports. Investors of record on Thursday, December 26th will be paid a dividend of 0.18 per share by the airline on Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $0.72 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.26%.

Southwest Airlines has increased its dividend payment by an average of 71.0% annually over the last three years. Southwest Airlines has a payout ratio of 45.6% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect Southwest Airlines to earn $1.55 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.72 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 46.5%.

Southwest Airlines Stock Up 0.3 %

Southwest Airlines stock opened at $31.86 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $19.10 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -455.07, a P/E/G ratio of 7.56 and a beta of 1.15. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $30.52 and a 200 day simple moving average of $28.60. Southwest Airlines has a 1-year low of $23.58 and a 1-year high of $35.18. The company has a current ratio of 0.88, a quick ratio of 0.83 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.49.

Southwest Airlines (NYSE:LUV) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, October 24th. The airline reported $0.15 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.05 by $0.10. The company had revenue of $6.87 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $6.77 billion. Southwest Airlines had a positive return on equity of 4.56% and a negative net margin of 0.06%. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.38 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.3% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts predict that Southwest Airlines will post 0.75 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Transactions at Southwest Airlines

In related news, Director Rakesh Gangwal acquired 643,788 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, October 1st. The shares were purchased at an average price of $29.98 per share, for a total transaction of $19,300,764.24. Following the completion of the acquisition, the director now owns 3,606,311 shares in the company, valued at approximately $108,117,203.78. This represents a 21.73 % increase in their ownership of the stock. The purchase was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, major shareholder Elliott Investment Management sold 1,203,920 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, October 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $29.83, for a total value of $35,912,933.60. Following the sale, the insider now owns 59,912,580 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,787,192,261.40. This represents a 1.97 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Company insiders own 0.33% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities analysts have recently commented on the stock. Barclays raised their price objective on shares of Southwest Airlines from $27.00 to $32.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 15th. Sanford C. Bernstein reduced their price target on shares of Southwest Airlines from $26.00 to $24.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, August 5th. Evercore ISI upgraded Southwest Airlines from an “in-line” rating to an “outperform” rating and increased their price objective for the stock from $30.00 to $35.00 in a research report on Tuesday, September 3rd. BNP Paribas upgraded Southwest Airlines to a “strong sell” rating in a research report on Thursday, September 19th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group reaffirmed a “sell” rating and issued a $28.00 price target on shares of Southwest Airlines in a report on Friday, November 15th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, twelve have given a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Southwest Airlines currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $30.78.

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.