Southwest Airlines Co. (LUV) To Go Ex-Dividend on December 26th

Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE:LUV) declared 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 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.13%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, December 26th.

Southwest Airlines has raised its dividend payment by an average of 71.0% per year over the last three years. Southwest Airlines has a dividend payout ratio of 43.9% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect Southwest Airlines to earn $1.63 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 44.2%.

Southwest Airlines Trading Up 1.7 %

LUV opened at $33.86 on Tuesday. The stock has a market cap of $20.31 billion, a PE ratio of -483.71, a PEG ratio of 7.38 and a beta of 1.16. The business has a 50 day moving average of $31.92 and a 200-day moving average of $29.46. Southwest Airlines has a 52 week low of $23.58 and a 52 week high of $36.12. The company has a quick ratio of 0.83, a current ratio of 0.88 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.49.

Southwest Airlines (NYSE:LUV) last released its earnings results on Thursday, October 24th. The airline reported $0.15 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.05 by $0.10. The firm had revenue of $6.87 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $6.77 billion. Southwest Airlines had a negative net margin of 0.06% and a positive return on equity of 4.56%. The business’s revenue was up 5.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business earned $0.38 earnings per share. Equities research analysts predict that Southwest Airlines will post 0.78 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have issued reports on LUV. Jefferies Financial Group raised Southwest Airlines from an “underperform” rating to a “hold” rating and raised their target price for the stock from $24.00 to $32.00 in a research report on Wednesday, October 9th. BNP Paribas upgraded shares of Southwest Airlines to a “strong sell” rating in a research report on Thursday, September 19th. Sanford C. Bernstein upped their target price on shares of Southwest Airlines from $30.00 to $33.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, December 11th. Evercore ISI upgraded shares of Southwest Airlines from an “in-line” rating to an “outperform” rating and lifted their price target for the stock from $30.00 to $35.00 in a research note on Tuesday, September 3rd. Finally, Susquehanna upped their price objective on Southwest Airlines from $25.00 to $30.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 9th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, twelve have assigned a hold rating and three have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $31.37.

Insider Activity

In other Southwest Airlines news, insider Linda B. Rutherford sold 3,849 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, December 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $34.40, for a total transaction of $132,405.60. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 89,376 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,074,534.40. This represents a 4.13 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, major shareholder Elliott Investment Management sold 1,203,920 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, October 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $29.83, for a total transaction of $35,912,933.60. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 59,912,580 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,787,192,261.40. This trade represents a 1.97 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders own 0.33% of the company’s stock.

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.