UAL vs. LUV, ALK, DAL, AAL, RYAAY, EXPD, JBHT, ZTO, UHAL, and XPO
Should you be buying United Airlines stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of United Airlines include Southwest Airlines (LUV), 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), U-Haul (UHAL), and XPO (XPO). These companies are all part of the "transportation" sector.
Southwest Airlines (NYSE:LUV) and United Airlines (NASDAQ:UAL) are both large-cap transportation companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, analyst recommendations, community ranking, profitability, earnings, risk, media sentiment, institutional ownership and valuation.
Southwest Airlines has a beta of 1.16, indicating that its share price is 16% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, United Airlines has a beta of 1.49, indicating that its share price is 49% more volatile than the S&P 500.
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.
80.8% of Southwest Airlines shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 69.7% of United Airlines shares are held by institutional investors. 0.3% of Southwest Airlines shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.6% of United Airlines shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
In the previous week, United Airlines had 9 more articles in the media than Southwest Airlines. MarketBeat recorded 24 mentions for United Airlines and 15 mentions for Southwest Airlines. Southwest Airlines' average media sentiment score of 0.71 beat United Airlines' score of 0.63 indicating that United Airlines is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
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.
Southwest Airlines received 166 more outperform votes than United Airlines when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 69.98% of users gave Southwest Airlines an outperform vote while only 66.05% of users gave United Airlines an outperform vote.
Southwest Airlines presently has a consensus price target of $30.10, indicating a potential upside of 13.52%. United Airlines has a consensus price target of $67.25, indicating a potential upside of 32.79%. Given Southwest Airlines' stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe United Airlines is more favorable than Southwest Airlines.
Summary
United Airlines beats Southwest Airlines on 13 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding UAL 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 NASDAQ 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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