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How to buy Southwest Airlines stock | $38.24
Own Southwest Airlines stock in just a few minutes.
Southwest Airlines Co is an airlines business based in the US. Southwest Airlines shares (LUV) are listed on the NYSE and all prices are listed in US Dollars. Southwest Airlines employs 61,118 staff and has a trailing 12-month revenue of around USD$16.6 billion.
How to buy shares in Southwest Airlines
- Compare share trading platforms. If you're a beginner, look for a platform with low commissions, expert ratings and investment tools to track your portfolio. Narrow down top brands with our comparison table.
- Open and fund your brokerage account. Complete an application with your personal and financial details, like your ID and bank information. Fund your account with a bank transfer, credit card or debit card.
- Search for Southwest Airlines Find the stock by name or ticker symbol: LUV. Research its history to confirm it's a solid investment against your financial goals.
- Purchase now or later. Buy today with a market order or use a limit order to delay your purchase until Southwest Airlines reaches your desired price. To spread out your purchase, look into dollar-cost averaging, which smooths out buying at consistent intervals and amounts.
- Decide on how many to buy. At last close price of USD$38.24, weigh your budget against a diversified portfolio that can minimize risk through the market's ups and downs. You may be able to buy a fractional share of Southwest Airlines, depending on your broker.
- Check in on your investment. Congratulations, you own a part of Southwest Airlines. Optimize your portfolio by tracking how your stock — and even the business — performs with an eye on the long term. You may be eligible for dividends and shareholder voting rights on directors and management that can affect your stock.
What's in this guide?
- LUV shares summary
- Compare share dealing platforms
- Is LUV stock a buy or sell?
- Stock performance over time
- Can I short LUV shares?
- Is LUV suitable for ethical investing?
- Are LUV shares over-valued?
- Southwest Airlines's financials
- How volatile are LUV shares?
- Does Southwest Airlines pay a dividend?
- Have LUV shares ever split?
- Other common questions
Southwest Airlines share price
Use our graph to track the performance of LUV stocks over time.Southwest Airlines shares at a glance
Information last updated 2020-09-25.
| Latest market close | USD$38.24 |
|---|---|
| 52-week range | USD$22.465 - USD$58.83 |
| 50-day moving average | USD$37.2311 |
| 200-day moving average | USD$34.0522 |
| Wall St. target price | USD$43.8 |
| PE ratio | 110.4412 |
| Dividend yield | USD$0.72 (2.13%) |
| Earnings per share (TTM) | USD$0.305 |
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Is it a good time to buy Southwest Airlines stock?
The technical analysis gauge below displays real-time ratings for the timeframes you select. This is not a recommendation, however. It represents a technical analysis based on the most popular technical indicators: Moving Averages, Oscillators and Pivots. Finder might not concur and takes no responsibility.
This chart is not advice or a guarantee of success. Rather, it gauges the real-time recommendations of three popular technical indicators: moving averages, oscillators and pivots. Finder is not responsible for how your stock performs.
Southwest Airlines price performance over time
Historical closes compared with the close of $38.24 from 2020-09-28
| 1 week (2020-09-24) | 3.74% |
|---|---|
| 1 month (2020-09-01) | 0.87% |
| 3 months (2020-07-01) | 13.10% |
| 6 months (2020-04-01) | 19.35% |
| 1 year (2019-10-01) | -28.35% |
|---|---|
| 2 years (2018-10-01) | -38.02% |
| 3 years (2017-09-29) | -31.69% |
| 5 years (2015-10-01) | -0.44% |
Is Southwest Airlines under- or over-valued?
Valuing Southwest Airlines stock is incredibly difficult, and any metric has to be viewed as part of a bigger picture of Southwest Airlines's overall performance. However, analysts commonly use some key metrics to help gauge the value of a stock.
Southwest Airlines's P/E ratio
Southwest Airlines's current share price divided by its per-share earnings (EPS) over a 12-month period gives a "trailing price/earnings ratio" of roughly 110x. In other words, Southwest Airlines shares trade at around 110x recent earnings.
That's relatively high compared to, say, the trailing 12-month P/E ratio for the NASDAQ 100 at the end of 2019 (27.29). The high P/E ratio could mean that investors are optimistic about the outlook for the shares or simply that they're over-valued.
Southwest Airlines's PEG ratio
Southwest Airlines's "price/earnings-to-growth ratio" can be calculated by dividing its P/E ratio by its growth – to give 12.1129. A low ratio can be interpreted as meaning the shares offer better value, while a higher ratio can be interpreted as meaning the shares offer worse value.
The PEG ratio provides a broader view than just the P/E ratio, as it gives more insight into Southwest Airlines's future profitability. By accounting for growth, it could also help you if you're comparing the share prices of multiple high-growth companies.
Southwest Airlines's EBITDA
Southwest Airlines's EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) is USD$279 million.
The EBITDA is a measure of a Southwest Airlines's overall financial performance and is widely used to measure a its profitability.
Southwest Airlines financials
| Revenue TTM | USD$16.6 billion |
|---|---|
| Gross profit TTM | USD$7 billion |
| Return on assets TTM | -1.59% |
| Return on equity TTM | 1.57% |
| Profit margin | 0.98% |
| Book value | $18.441 |
| Market capitalisation | USD$21.7 billion |
TTM: trailing 12 months
Shorting Southwest Airlines shares
There are currently 16.5 million Southwest Airlines shares held short by investors – that's known as Southwest Airlines's "short interest". This figure is 8.8% up from 15.2 million last month.
There are a few different ways that this level of interest in shorting Southwest Airlines shares can be evaluated.
Southwest Airlines's "short interest ratio" (SIR)
Southwest Airlines's "short interest ratio" (SIR) is the quantity of Southwest Airlines shares currently shorted divided by the average quantity of Southwest Airlines shares traded daily (recently around 11.6 million). Southwest Airlines's SIR currently stands at 1.43. In other words for every 100,000 Southwest Airlines shares traded daily on the market, roughly 1430 shares are currently held short.
However Southwest Airlines's short interest can also be evaluated against the total number of Southwest Airlines shares, or, against the total number of tradable Southwest Airlines shares (the shares that aren't held by "insiders" or major long-term shareholders – also known as the "float"). In this case Southwest Airlines's short interest could be expressed as 0.03% of the outstanding shares (for every 100,000 Southwest Airlines shares in existence, roughly 30 shares are currently held short) or 0.0358% of the tradable shares (for every 100,000 tradable Southwest Airlines shares, roughly 36 shares are currently held short).
Such a low SIR usually points to an optimistic outlook for the share price, with fewer people currently willing to bet against Southwest Airlines.
Find out more about how you can short Southwest Airlines stock.
Southwest Airlines's environmental, social and governance track record
Environmental, social and governance (known as ESG) criteria are a set of three factors used to measure the sustainability and social impact of companies like Southwest Airlines.
When it comes to ESG scores, lower is better, and lower scores are generally associated with lower risk for would-be investors.
Southwest Airlines's total ESG risk score
Total ESG risk: 30.92
Socially conscious investors use ESG scores to screen how an investment aligns with their worldview, and Southwest Airlines's overall score of 30.92 (as at 08/01/2020) is pretty weak – landing it in it in the 63rd percentile of companies rated in the same sector.
ESG scores are increasingly used to estimate the level of risk a company like Southwest Airlines is exposed to within the areas of "environmental" (carbon footprint, resource use etc.), "social" (health and safety, human rights etc.), and "governance" (anti-corruption, tax transparency etc.).
Southwest Airlines's environmental score
Environmental score: 8.72/100
Southwest Airlines's social score
Social score: 11.49/100
Southwest Airlines's governance score
Governance score: 5.71/100
Southwest Airlines's controversy score
Controversy score: 2/5
ESG scores also evaluate any incidences of controversy that a company has been involved in. Southwest Airlines scored a 2 out of 5 for controversy – the second-highest score possible, reflecting that Southwest Airlines has, for the most part, managed to keep its nose clean.
Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) summary
Southwest Airlines Co was last rated for ESG on: 2020-08-01.
| Total ESG score | 30.92 |
|---|---|
| Total ESG percentile | 62.54 |
| Environmental score | 8.72 |
| Social score | 11.49 |
| Governance score | 5.71 |
| Level of controversy | 2 |
Southwest Airlines share dividends
Dividend payout ratio: 158.82% of net profits
Recently Southwest Airlines has paid out, on average, around 158.82% of net profits as dividends. That has enabled analysts to estimate a "forward annual dividend yield" of 2.13% of the current stock value. This means that over a year, based on recent payouts (which are sadly no guarantee of future payouts), Southwest Airlines shareholders could enjoy a 2.13% return on their shares, in the form of dividend payments. In Southwest Airlines's case, that would currently equate to about $0.72 per share.
Southwest Airlines's payout ratio would broadly be considered high, and as such this stock could appeal to those looking to generate an income. Bear in mind however that companies should normally also look to re-invest a decent amount of net profits to ensure future growth.
Southwest Airlines's most recent dividend payout was on 25 March 2020. The latest dividend was paid out to all shareholders who bought their shares by 3 March 2020 (the "ex-dividend date").
Have Southwest Airlines's shares ever split?
Southwest Airlines's shares were split on a 3:2 basis on 16 February 2001. So if you had owned 2 shares the day before before the split, the next day you'd have owned 3 shares. This wouldn't directly have changed the overall worth of your Southwest Airlines shares – just the quantity. However, indirectly, the new 33.3% lower share price could have impacted the market appetite for Southwest Airlines shares which in turn could have impacted Southwest Airlines's share price.
Southwest Airlines share price volatility
Over the last 12 months, Southwest Airlines's shares have ranged in value from as little as $22.465 up to $58.83. A popular way to gauge a stock's volatility is its "beta".
Beta is a measure of a share's volatility in relation to the market. The market (NYSE average) beta is 1, while Southwest Airlines's is 1.3155. This would suggest that Southwest Airlines's shares are more volatile than the average for this exchange and represent, relatively-speaking, a higher risk (but potentially also market-beating returns).
Southwest Airlines overview
Southwest Airlines Co. operates a passenger airline that provides scheduled air transportation services in the United States and near-international markets. As of December 31, 2019, the company operated a total of 747 Boeing 737 aircraft; and served 101 destinations in 40 states, the District of Columbia, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, as well as 10 near-international countries, including Mexico, Jamaica, the Bahamas, Aruba, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Belize, Cuba, the Cayman Islands, and Turks and Caicos. It also offers inflight entertainment and connectivity service on Wi-Fi enabled aircraft; and sells points and related services to business partners participating in the Rapid Rewards loyalty program, such as car rental agencies, hotels, and restaurants. In addition, the company provides a suite of digital platforms to support customers' needs across the travel journey, including Southwest.com, mobile.southwest.com, an iOS app, an iPadOS app, and an android app; and SWABIZ, an online booking tool. Further, it offers ancillary services, such as Southwest's EarlyBird Check-In, upgraded boarding, and transportation of pets and unaccompanied minors. Southwest Airlines Co. was founded in 1967 and is headquartered in Dallas, Texas.
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