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

Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE:LUV) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, November 21st,RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Thursday, December 26th will be given 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 yield of 2.26%.

Southwest Airlines has increased its dividend by an average of 71.0% per year over the last three years. Southwest Airlines has a dividend payout ratio of 45.6% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research 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 Performance

Shares of LUV stock opened at $31.86 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $19.10 billion, a PE ratio of -455.07, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 7.56 and a beta of 1.15. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $30.52 and a 200-day moving average of $28.60. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.49, a current ratio of 0.88 and a quick ratio of 0.83. Southwest Airlines has a one year low of $23.58 and a one year high of $35.18.

Southwest Airlines (NYSE:LUV) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 24th. The airline reported $0.15 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.05 by $0.10. Southwest Airlines had a negative net margin of 0.06% and a positive return on equity of 4.56%. The company had revenue of $6.87 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $6.77 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $0.38 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 5.3% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Southwest Airlines will post 0.75 earnings per share for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, major shareholder Elliott Investment Management sold 1,203,920 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $29.83, for a total transaction of $35,912,933.60. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly 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 position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, Director Rakesh Gangwal purchased 643,788 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, October 1st. The stock was bought at an average cost of $29.98 per share, for a total transaction of $19,300,764.24. Following the acquisition, the director now directly owns 3,606,311 shares in the company, valued at $108,117,203.78. This trade represents a 21.73 % increase in their position. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. Insiders own 0.33% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms recently commented on LUV. Jefferies Financial Group raised shares of Southwest Airlines from an “underperform” rating to a “hold” rating and boosted their price objective for the company from $24.00 to $32.00 in a research report on Wednesday, October 9th. Barclays boosted their price target on shares of Southwest Airlines from $27.00 to $32.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 15th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reissued a “hold” rating and issued a $29.00 price objective (down previously from $32.00) on shares of Southwest Airlines in a report on Friday, July 26th. BNP Paribas upgraded shares of Southwest Airlines to a “strong sell” rating in a report on Thursday, September 19th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price target on shares of Southwest Airlines from $20.00 to $26.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, October 25th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, twelve have issued a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $30.78.

Southwest Airlines Company 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.