Southwest Airlines
LUV on NYSE. Southwest Airlines sells passenger flights to travelers in the United States. Market value $20.5bn.
Price checks use the past 12 months to June 2026. Some use the latest annual report instead, as marked. Quality checks use five annual reports, the latest for the year to December 2025.
Should I look at this?
Not a fit for our list right now
Why it could be worth it
See Industrials stocks that passed both tests
This is not advice. Check the numbers below.
For every $100 of what the whole company costs, it produced $-4.00 of spare cash last year. A savings account pays about $4.
You pay 22.0 years of operating profit for the business. The average large US company costs around 18.
Each dollar kept in the business earns 3 cents a year. Above 10 is good.
Quality score: 50 of 100. Price score: 37 of 100. Our list needs 70 on quality and 60 on price.
$42.45 a share, 45% above its 1-year low
Over the past year the price has ranged from $29.26 to $55.11.
Dividend: 1.8% a year
Paid every year for 3 years
Prices from Tuesday’s close (6 October).
Five years of cash, in billions
| Revenue | |||||
| Revenue | $15.8bn | $23.8bn | $26.1bn | $27.5bn | $28.1bn |
| Operating margin | |||||
| Operating margin | 10.9% | 4.3% | 0.9% | 1.2% | 1.5% |
| Debt to equity | |||||
| Debt to equity | 1.03 | 0.76 | 0.76 | 0.65 | 0.62 |
| Shares outstanding | |||||
| Shares outstanding | 0.59bn | 0.60bn | 0.60bn | 0.52bn | 0.49bn |
Health checks
- Free cash flow positive1 of 5 years
- Accounting looks honest (Beneish)Not enough data
- Financial strength (Piotroski)6 of 7 checks we could run
- Profit backed by cash (accruals)Yes
- Debt0.62× equity
- Revenue growth, five yearsStrong, 25.4% a year
- Buying back its own sharesYes, 18% fewer since 2021
The quarter to June 2026
How the business did, compared with the same quarter a year earlier.
- Sales: $8.4 billion last quarter, up 16% on a year ago.
- Profit: $233 million, up 9% on a year ago.
- It keeps 3 cents of each $1 of sales as operating profit, up from 1 cents a year earlier.
- 9% fewer shares than a year ago. Each share owns a bit more of the company.
- Debt is $2.2 billion more than cash, up from $628 million a year ago.
- Sales grew on a year ago in each of the last 4 quarters.
| Quarter to | Amount |
|---|---|
| September 2024 | $6.9bn |
| December 2024 | $6.9bn |
| March 2025 | $6.4bn |
| June 2025 | $7.2bn |
| September 2025 | $6.9bn |
| December 2025 | $7.4bn |
| March 2026 | $7.2bn |
| June 2026 | $8.4bn |
| Quarter to | Amount |
|---|---|
| September 2024 | $67m |
| December 2024 | $261m |
| March 2025 | -$149m |
| June 2025 | $213m |
| September 2025 | $54m |
| December 2025 | $323m |
| March 2026 | $227m |
| June 2026 | $233m |
From the company's quarterly reports to the SEC.
Dates
- Next results (estimated)
- 21 October 2026
- Last annual report (10-K)
- 5 February 2026
- Next quarterly (estimated, 10-Q)
- 22 October 2026
Who owns it
7 long-term investors we follow own it, down from 8 last quarter. 928 funds in all.
| Fund | Value | Share of that fund | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Elliott Investment ManagementPaul Singer | $1.2bn | 8.7% | Cut |
| Sound Shore ManagementHarry Burn | $126m | 3.9% | Added |
| Kiltearn PartnersKiltearn team | $32m | 7.7% | Added |
| Gotham Asset ManagementJoel Greenblatt | $29m | <0.1% | Added |
| Cambiar InvestorsBrian Barish | $12m | 0.5% | Added |
| Heartland AdvisorsBill Nasgovitz | $7m | 0.3% | Cut |
| First Eagle Investment ManagementMatthew McLennan | $719,880 | <0.1% | Added |
Sold out this quarter
Largest holders overall
- Primecap Management$2.5bnAdded
- Franklin Resources$2.4bnAdded
- Vanguard Capital Management$1.6bn
- BlackRock$1.5bnAdded
- State Street$1.5bn
- Elliott Investment Management$1.2bnCut
- Vanguard Portfolio Management$1.2bnAdded
- Price T Rowe Associates$715m
- Geode Capital Management$654m
- Ameriprise Financial$554mAdded
From 13F filings for the quarter ended 30 June 2026.
Big holders and activists
3 investors own more than 5%.
- PRIMECAP MANAGEMENT CO/CA/Passive investor10.0%+0.4 ptsSince 30 September 2026
- Franklin Resources, Inc.Passive investorat least 9.0%+1.2 pts(filed with 3 related holders)Since 31 March 2026
- Vanguard Capital ManagementPassive investor7.2%Since 31 March 2026
- Elliott Investment ManagementPassive investorSold down below 5%Since 2 April 2026
What they said
The Reporting Person reduced the economic exposure of the Elliott Funds for portfolio management purposes. The Elliott Funds remain significant shareholders of the Issuer based on the Reporting Person's confidence that the Issuer's execution of ongoing strategic initiatives will…
Read the filing - Capital World InvestorsPassive investorSold down below 5%Since 28 February 2025
- The Vanguard GroupPassive investorSold down below 5%Since 13 March 2026
| Holder | Stake | Since | |
|---|---|---|---|
PRIMECAP MANAGEMENT CO/CA/ Passive investor | 10.0%+0.4 pts | 30 September 2026 | |
Franklin Resources, Inc. Passive investor | at least 9.0%+1.2 pts (filed with 3 related holders) | 31 March 2026 | |
Vanguard Capital Management Passive investor | 7.2% | 31 March 2026 | |
Elliott Investment Management Passive investor | Sold down below 5% | 2 April 2026 | What they saidThe Reporting Person reduced the economic exposure of the Elliott Funds for portfolio management purposes. The Elliott Funds remain significant shareholders of the Issuer based on the Reporting Person's confidence that the Issuer's execution of ongoing strategic initiatives will… Read the filing |
Capital World Investors Passive investor | Sold down below 5% | 28 February 2025 | |
The Vanguard Group Passive investor | Sold down below 5% | 13 March 2026 |
From Schedule 13D and 13G filings: anyone owning more than 5% must file one.
What insiders did
No insider bought shares on the open market in the last 12 months. 2 sold $306,534.
- Atherton Lisa MDirectorSold
- Date
- 7 April 2026
- Shares
- 118
- Price
- $37.95
- Value
- $4,478
- Jones JustinEVP OperationsSold
- Date
- 5 December 2025
- Shares
- 8,085
- Price
- $37.36
- Value
- $302,056
| Date | Who | Did | Shares | Price | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 April 2026 | Atherton Lisa M Director | Sold | 118 | $37.95 | $4,478 |
| 5 December 2025 | Jones Justin EVP Operations | Sold | 8,085 | $37.36 | $302,056 |
From Form 4 filings: insiders must report trades in their own company's shares within two days.
Warning signs in its filings
Problems the company itself reported to the SEC, in its own words.
None of the warning signs we check for were found.
We look for five warning signs: doubt it can keep going, weak checks on its own accounts, a notice that its past accounts can't be relied on, a change of auditor, and one customer bringing in a big share of sales. We don't check lawsuits, investigations or debt yet.
We checked the auditor's report, internal controls, restatement notices, auditor changes and big customers in the 10-K filed 5 Feb 2026, plus the 10-Q filed 23 Jul 2026 and 9 later 8-Ks.
A 10-K is the yearly report every US company files with the SEC. An 8-K is a short notice of a big event.
What could go wrong
Cheap for a reason is the question the numbers cannot answer.
Whether the price already reflects the risks is what the deep dive is for.
The deep dive
Everything above is arithmetic on public filings. The deep dive reads the last ten years of annual reports, the proxy statements, and the earnings calls, then argues the case the way Buffett, Klarman, and Hohn would, and checks every claim against the source.
- What the business is worth, as a range, and the margin of safety at today’s price
- Prices to start buying, buy, and buy hard
- The three things that would make this a mistake
- Every number footnoted to the filing it came from
Your first deep dive is free.
Not advice. Numbers on this page come from SEC filings and are updated each night; prices are updated again after the US market closes. The five-year figures are rounded.