QualityDipStocks / Consumer Discretionary · Air freight & delivery
Southwest Airlines Company LUV
Outside our quality screen, so we don’t track its dips. It’s 23% below its 52-week high.
Outside our quality screen. No fair value estimate for now: its free cash flow is negative.
- Fair value est.
- n/a
- Market Value
- $42.68price −1%
- Off 52-wk high
- −23%
- Risk vs market
- Highbeta 1.62
4 bullish · 5 bearish See why
Key levels
Every level vs today’s $42.43
- 52-wk lowlowest close, 1 year$29.67−30.1%
- PriceFri Oct 30 close$42.43you are here
- Market Valueavg paid since Oct 21$42.68+0.6%
- 52-wk highhighest close, 1 year$54.80+29.2%
Fair value estimate
No estimate for LUV: negative free cash flow. We’d rather show nothing than a made-up number.
Risk vs market
How risk vs market is measured
One year of daily returns (Oct 30 to Oct 30, 252 sessions). Beta = how much LUV moved for each 1% move in the S&P 500 (SPY); 1.0 moves with the market. Volatility is the yearly standard deviation of daily returns. Past behavior, not a forecast.
Swings much more than the market, and its own price swings are 3.4× the S&P 500’s.
- Beta vs S&P 500
- 1.62
- Volatility
- 44% vs 13% SPY
- Correlation SPY
- 0.47
- Correlation QQQ
- 0.37
Bull vs bear
Rule-based from the data on this page, strongest first. Not advice.
Top bullish points 4 of 5
Cash returnsShare count down 6.1% in a year: $1.3B of buybacks over 12 months.
Balance sheetPaid down debt: $4.9B at FY2025, 38% less than at FY2023.
GrowthSales grew 15% to $31.5B over the last 12 months vs the 12 months before (SEC filings).
ValuationEV/EBITDA of 8.0×: modest for what the business earns before interest, tax and depreciation.
Top bearish points 5 of 5
ValuationFree cash flow is negative (−$450M over the last 12 months), so there’s no cash-flow value under the price.
ValuationFree-cash-flow yield of −2.1%, below the 4.9% median for the 169 Consumer Discretionary companies we cover.
ProfitabilityOperating margin of 4.4%, below the 13% median for the 156 Consumer Discretionary companies we cover.
ProfitabilityReturn on equity of 14%, below the 23% median for the 149 Consumer Discretionary companies we cover.
QualityDoesn’t pass our quality screen: no positive free cash flow.
Who’s talking about it
Notable investors, executives, analysts and public figures on Southwest Airlines Company in the last 48 hours. Headlines as published, each linked. Their words, not ours.
No notable mentions in the last 48 hours. Checked Nov 1, 9:09 PM ET.
Compare with peers
Closest in size in Air freight & delivery
All fundamentals
P/E 20.3 · FCF yield -2.1% · ROE 14%
Valuation
- P/E
- 20.3×Consumer Discretionary median 20.9×
- Price / FCF
- n/anegative free cash flow
- FCF yield
- −2.1%
- EV / EBITDA
- 8.0×
- Price / sales
- 0.68×
- Price / book
- 2.92×
- Market cap
- $21.4Blisted
- Enterprise value
- $23.7B
Growth
- Revenue, 12 months
- $31.5B
- Sales growth, 12 months
- +14.5%vs the 12 months before
- Sales growth, 3 yrs
- +5.6%/yrfrom FY2022
- Diluted EPS, 12 months
- $2.05
- EPS growth, last FY
- +3.9%
- Net income, 12 months
- $1.1B
- Net income growth
- +174%12 months vs before
Profitability
- Gross margin
- n/agross profit isn't reported (common for service and financial companies)
- Operating margin
- 4.4%
- Net margin
- 3.3%
- FCF margin
- −1.4%
- Return on equity
- 14%
- Return on invested capital
- 11%
Balance sheet
- Cash & short-term inv.
- $3.6B
- Total debt
- $5.9B
- Net cash
- −$2.3B
- Debt / equity
- 0.80×
- Interest coverage
- 5.9×operating income / interest
Cash flow & returns
- Free cash flow, 12 months
- −$450M
- FCF growth, 12 months
- n/anot reported in its SEC filings
- Dividend yield
- 1.67%$357M paid
- Payout ratio
- 34%
- Buybacks, 12 months
- $1.3B6.1% of market cap
- Share count, 1 year
- −6.1%diluted shares vs a year ago
- Stock-based comp
- n/anot reported in its SEC filings
Trailing 12 months to Sep 30, 2026; balance sheet at Sep 30, 2026. From Southwest Airlines Company’s SEC filings. Sparklines show up to six fiscal years. n/a means we don’t hold that number, with the reason. How each is computed.
Valuation details
MV $42.68
Setup & signals
No setup armed
No setup armed, so there’s no trigger or stop to track yet. Reversal signal rules only run on companies that pass our quality screen.
Momentum & 52-week range
RSI 54 · 5 days +1.6%
The business
FCF $-0.5B · Sales +21%
- Free cash flow, 12 months−$0.5B
- Free-cash-flow yield−2.1%
- Free-cash-flow margin−1%
- Gross margin18%
- Operating margin4%
- Return on invested capital8%
- Return on equity14%
- Sales growth (latest quarter vs year-ago quarter)+21%
- Net debt / EBITDA1.1×
Information only, not investment advice. Fair value estimates and talking points are rule-based model output from public data and can be wrong; stop levels are reference points, not orders. How every number is computed.
LUV is outside our quality screen
One text when a published rule fires on one of the 333 quality companies we track: the ticker, the price, the stop and a link to the numbers. Nothing else.