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Southwest Airlines (LUV) Stock Declines While Market Improves: Some Information for Investors

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Southwest Airlines (LUV - Free Report) closed the most recent trading day at $28.97, moving -0.14% from the previous trading session. This change lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.45%.

The investment community will be paying close attention to the earnings performance of Southwest Airlines in its upcoming release. The company is forecasted to report an EPS of $0.15, showcasing a 139.47% upward movement from the corresponding quarter of the prior year. In the meantime, our current consensus estimate forecasts the revenue to be $6.75 billion, indicating a 9.33% growth compared to the corresponding quarter of the prior year.

For the annual period, the Zacks Consensus Estimates anticipate earnings of $1.39 per share and a revenue of $25.99 billion, signifying shifts of +19.83% and +9.13%, respectively, from the last year.

Any recent changes to analyst estimates for Southwest Airlines should also be noted by investors. Such recent modifications usually signify the changing landscape of near-term business trends. As a result, we can interpret positive estimate revisions as a good sign for the company's business outlook.

Empirical research indicates that these revisions in estimates have a direct correlation with impending stock price performance. To utilize this, we have created the Zacks Rank, a proprietary model that integrates these estimate changes and provides a functional rating system.

The Zacks Rank system, ranging from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), possesses a remarkable history of outdoing, externally audited, with #1 stocks returning an average annual gain of +25% since 1988. Over the past month, there's been a 1.38% rise in the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate. Southwest Airlines currently has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

In terms of valuation, Southwest Airlines is presently being traded at a Forward P/E ratio of 20.81. This denotes a premium relative to the industry's average Forward P/E of 7.42.

We can additionally observe that LUV currently boasts a PEG ratio of 1.27. The PEG ratio is akin to the commonly utilized P/E ratio, but this measure also incorporates the company's anticipated earnings growth rate. The Transportation - Airline industry currently had an average PEG ratio of 0.32 as of yesterday's close.

The Transportation - Airline industry is part of the Transportation sector. Currently, this industry holds a Zacks Industry Rank of 188, positioning it in the bottom 26% of all 250+ industries.

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

Ensure to harness Zacks.com to stay updated with all these stock-shifting metrics, among others, in the next trading sessions.


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