UAL vs. LUV, ALK, CPA, SAVE, MESA, DAL, AAL, RYAAY, TFII, 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), Copa (CPA), Spirit Airlines (SAVE), Mesa Air Group (MESA), Delta Air Lines (DAL), American Airlines Group (AAL), Ryanair (RYAAY), TFI International (TFII), and XPO (XPO). 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 better business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, earnings, media sentiment, valuation, profitability, community ranking, dividends, risk and analyst recommendations.
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, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.
United Airlines has a beta of 1.55, indicating that its stock price is 55% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Southwest Airlines has a beta of 1.15, indicating that its stock price is 15% more volatile than the S&P 500.
United Airlines currently has a consensus price target of $66.53, indicating a potential upside of 23.14%. Southwest Airlines has a consensus price target of $31.82, indicating a potential upside of 8.02%. Given United Airlines' stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, research analysts plainly believe United Airlines is more favorable than Southwest Airlines.
United Airlines has a net margin of 4.90% compared to Southwest Airlines' net margin of 1.91%. United Airlines' return on equity of 39.85% beat Southwest Airlines' return on equity.
In the previous week, United Airlines had 85 more articles in the media than Southwest Airlines. MarketBeat recorded 102 mentions for United Airlines and 17 mentions for Southwest Airlines. Southwest Airlines' average media sentiment score of 0.75 beat United Airlines' score of 0.65 indicating that Southwest Airlines is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Southwest Airlines received 167 more outperform votes than United Airlines when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 70.30% of users gave Southwest Airlines an outperform vote while only 66.05% of users gave United Airlines an outperform vote.
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 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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