JetBlue Airways (NASDAQ:JBLU) Trading Up 8.7% Following Analyst Upgrade

JetBlue Airways Co. (NASDAQ:JBLU)’s stock price was up 8.7% during trading on Monday after Bank of America upgraded the stock from an underperform rating to a neutral rating. Bank of America now has a $6.00 price target on the stock, up from their previous price target of $3.00. JetBlue Airways traded as high as $5.76 and last traded at $5.76. Approximately 6,959,181 shares were traded during trading, a decline of 54% from the average daily volume of 15,111,646 shares. The stock had previously closed at $5.30.

A number of other brokerages have also recently issued reports on JBLU. TD Cowen upped their target price on shares of JetBlue Airways from $5.00 to $6.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a report on Friday. Citigroup cut their price objective on JetBlue Airways from $6.90 to $6.50 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, May 29th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have issued a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $6.05.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On JetBlue Airways

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in JBLU. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position in JetBlue Airways by 0.9% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 37,376,886 shares of the transportation company’s stock valued at $277,336,000 after purchasing an additional 317,263 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its holdings in JetBlue Airways by 3.0% in the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 17,878,115 shares of the transportation company’s stock valued at $108,875,000 after buying an additional 521,767 shares during the last quarter. Donald Smith & CO. Inc. raised its holdings in JetBlue Airways by 6.5% in the 1st quarter. Donald Smith & CO. Inc. now owns 13,256,094 shares of the transportation company’s stock valued at $98,360,000 after buying an additional 805,404 shares during the last quarter. American Century Companies Inc. boosted its position in JetBlue Airways by 16.4% during the 2nd quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 8,041,025 shares of the transportation company’s stock worth $48,970,000 after buying an additional 1,135,217 shares during the period. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its holdings in JetBlue Airways by 5.1% during the 4th quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 3,861,383 shares of the transportation company’s stock worth $21,431,000 after acquiring an additional 186,185 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 83.71% of the company’s stock.

JetBlue Airways Stock Performance

The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $5.54 and its 200-day simple moving average is $6.03. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.97 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -2.33 and a beta of 1.91. The company has a current ratio of 0.54, a quick ratio of 0.50 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.86.

JetBlue Airways (NASDAQ:JBLU) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, July 30th. The transportation company reported $0.08 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.18) by $0.26. The firm had revenue of $2.40 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.40 billion. JetBlue Airways had a negative return on equity of 10.29% and a negative net margin of 10.18%. The business’s revenue was down 8.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.45 EPS. On average, analysts expect that JetBlue Airways Co. will post -1.1 EPS for the current year.

About JetBlue Airways

JetBlue Airways Corporation provides air transportation services. The company operates a fleet of Airbus A321, Airbus A220, Airbus A321neo, Airbus A320 Restyled, Airbus A320, Airbus A321 with Mint, Airbus A321neo with Mint, Airbus A321neoLR with Mint, and Embraer E190 aircraft. It also serves 100 destinations across the United States, the Caribbean and Latin America, Canada, and Europe.