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Southwest Airlines (LUV) Gains As Market Dips: What You Should Know

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Southwest Airlines (LUV - Free Report) closed the most recent trading day at $42.84, moving +0.28% from the previous trading session. This move outpaced the S&P 500's daily loss of 0.26%. Elsewhere, the Dow lost 0.16%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 0.04%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the airline had lost 5.78% over the past month. This has lagged the Transportation sector's gain of 5.31% and the S&P 500's gain of 4.82% in that time.

Investors will be hoping for strength from Southwest Airlines as it approaches its next earnings release. The company is expected to report EPS of -$0.03, up 97.67% from the prior-year quarter. Meanwhile, our latest consensus estimate is calling for revenue of $4.99 billion, up 147.95% from the prior-year quarter.

LUV's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of -$2.27 per share and revenue of $15.65 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of +63.5% and +72.95%, respectively.

Any recent changes to analyst estimates for Southwest Airlines should also be noted by investors. Recent revisions tend to reflect the latest near-term business trends. As a result, we can interpret positive estimate revisions as a good sign for the company's business outlook.

Our research shows that these estimate changes are directly correlated with near-term stock prices. We developed the Zacks Rank to capitalize on this phenomenon. Our system takes these estimate changes into account and delivers a clear, actionable rating model.

Ranging from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), the Zacks Rank system has a proven, outside-audited track record of outperformance, with #1 stocks returning an average of +25% annually since 1988. The Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 14.19% higher within the past month. Southwest Airlines is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

The Transportation - Airline industry is part of the Transportation sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 238, putting it in the bottom 7% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank gauges the strength of our individual industry groups by measuring the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks within the groups. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.

Be sure to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and many more, on Zacks.com.


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