LUV vs. DAL, UAL, ALK, CPA, SKYW, JBLU, ALGT, HA, RYAAY, and AAL
Should you be buying Southwest Airlines stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Southwest Airlines include Delta Air Lines (DAL), United Airlines (UAL), Alaska Air Group (ALK), Copa (CPA), SkyWest (SKYW), JetBlue Airways (JBLU), Allegiant Travel (ALGT), Hawaiian (HA), Ryanair (RYAAY), and American Airlines Group (AAL). These companies are all part of the "air transportation, scheduled" industry.
Southwest Airlines (NYSE:LUV) and Delta Air Lines (NYSE:DAL) are both large-cap transportation companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, media sentiment, earnings, dividends, analyst recommendations, risk, community ranking, valuation and institutional ownership.
Delta Air Lines has a net margin of 8.48% compared to Southwest Airlines' net margin of 1.59%. Delta Air Lines' return on equity of 41.89% beat Southwest Airlines' return on equity.
Delta Air Lines received 95 more outperform votes than Southwest Airlines when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 76.40% of users gave Delta Air Lines an outperform vote while only 69.98% of users gave Southwest Airlines an outperform vote.
Southwest Airlines pays an annual dividend of $0.72 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.7%. Delta Air Lines pays an annual dividend of $0.40 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.8%. Southwest Airlines pays out 114.3% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Delta Air Lines pays out 5.1% of its earnings in the form of a dividend.
Delta Air Lines has higher revenue and earnings than Southwest Airlines. Delta Air Lines is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Southwest Airlines, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Southwest Airlines has a beta of 1.16, indicating that its stock price is 16% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Delta Air Lines has a beta of 1.38, indicating that its stock price is 38% more volatile than the S&P 500.
In the previous week, Delta Air Lines had 6 more articles in the media than Southwest Airlines. MarketBeat recorded 21 mentions for Delta Air Lines and 15 mentions for Southwest Airlines. Delta Air Lines' average media sentiment score of 0.85 beat Southwest Airlines' score of 0.72 indicating that Delta Air Lines is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
80.8% of Southwest Airlines shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 69.9% of Delta Air Lines shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.3% of Southwest Airlines shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.0% of Delta Air Lines shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.
Southwest Airlines presently has a consensus target price of $30.10, suggesting a potential upside of 12.15%. Delta Air Lines has a consensus target price of $59.85, suggesting a potential upside of 17.31%. Given Delta Air Lines' stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Delta Air Lines is more favorable than Southwest Airlines.
Summary
Delta Air Lines beats Southwest Airlines on 17 of the 21 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding LUV and its top 5 competitors to their watchlist. Each company is represented with a line over a 90 day period.
This chart shows the average media sentiment of NYSE and its competitors over the past 90 days as caculated by MarketBeat. The averaged score is equivalent to the following: Very Negative Sentiment <= -1.5, Negative Sentiment > -1.5 and <= -0.5, Neutral Sentiment > -0.5 and < 0.5, Positive Sentiment >= 0.5 and < 1.5, and Very Positive Sentiment >= 1.5.
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