LUV vs. UAL, ALK, DAL, AAL, RYAAY, EXPD, JBHT, ZTO, XPO, and UHAL
Should you be buying Southwest Airlines stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Southwest Airlines include United Airlines (UAL), Alaska Air Group (ALK), Delta Air Lines (DAL), American Airlines Group (AAL), Ryanair (RYAAY), Expeditors International of Washington (EXPD), J.B. Hunt Transport Services (JBHT), ZTO Express (Cayman) (ZTO), XPO (XPO), and U-Haul (UHAL). These companies are all part of the "transportation" sector.
United Airlines (NASDAQ:UAL) and Southwest Airlines (NYSE:LUV) are both large-cap transportation companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, earnings, valuation, media sentiment, risk, analyst recommendations, profitability, institutional ownership and community ranking.
United Airlines currently has a consensus target price of $66.53, suggesting a potential upside of 28.82%. Southwest Airlines has a consensus target price of $30.59, suggesting a potential upside of 17.02%. Given Southwest Airlines' stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, research analysts plainly believe United Airlines is more favorable than Southwest Airlines.
Southwest Airlines received 168 more outperform votes than United Airlines when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 70.11% of users gave Southwest Airlines an outperform vote while only 66.01% of users gave United Airlines an outperform vote.
In the previous week, Southwest Airlines had 26 more articles in the media than United Airlines. MarketBeat recorded 53 mentions for Southwest Airlines and 27 mentions for United Airlines. Southwest Airlines' average media sentiment score of 0.88 beat United Airlines' score of 0.11 indicating that United Airlines is being referred to more favorably in the media.
United Airlines has a beta of 1.49, meaning that its stock price is 49% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Southwest Airlines has a beta of 1.16, meaning that its stock price is 16% more volatile than the S&P 500.
69.7% of United Airlines shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 80.8% of Southwest Airlines shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.6% of United Airlines shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 0.3% of Southwest Airlines shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.
United Airlines has a net margin of 4.90% compared to United Airlines' net margin of 1.59%. Southwest Airlines' return on equity of 39.85% beat United Airlines' return on equity.
United Airlines has higher revenue and earnings than Southwest Airlines. United Airlines is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Southwest Airlines, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Summary
United Airlines beats Southwest Airlines on 12 of the 18 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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