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Southwest Airlines (LUV) – Multiple Headwinds With No Clear Path To Destination

Southwest Airlines has always been a popular choice for US domestic travelers. With a business model focused on domestic travel only, it could give its customers exactly what they wanted without worrying about the burden that comes with international travel.

This trend is now slowly changing. Due to rising costs, it isn’t the cheapest airline anymore. And by being a budget airline, it doesn’t offer the comfort of bigger airlines like Delta and American Airlines. After bossing the post-COVID travel, the company now finds itself in a sport that is neither here nor there. And it is hurting its business big time.

Southwest Airlines was founded in 1967 and is headquartered in Dallas, Texas. It is a popular American airline known for providing affordable air travel options while minimizing operational costs.

To attain its goal of cheaper travel, the company connects locations directly without the need for a central hub, avoiding intermediary stops and reducing travel time.It also uses secondary airports that usually have lower landing fees. Quick turnaround times between flights ensure the return on each aircraft is maximized. Moreover, it only uses one aircraft type: the Boeing 737. This simplifies maintenance and training, helping the company reduce costs.

The company offers 3 main products: passenger air transportation, cargo services, and travel packages, including hotel and car rental options.

Passenger revenue accounts for approximately 85% of the total revenue while cargo and freight revenue represents around 5%. The remaining 10% comes from other services such as travel packages.

The airline operates across the United States as well as in some international destinations like Aruba, Jamaica, Costa Rica, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, the Cayman Islands, and Belize. The end market primarily consists of cost-conscious travelers seeking affordable air travel options.

In June this year, Elliott Management, an activist investor firm, took a stake in LUV in order to bring about some changes in the company. It proposed things like premium options and assigned seating. The most recent quarterly results were able to beat expectations, coming in at an EPS of $0.15 against expectations of $0.11 on the back of improved pricing and premium options.

However, digging deeper into the income statement showed how the company was struggling with non-fuel costs, especially maintenance and labor. These costs have already hurt LUV in previous quarters but their reappearance means they might be here to stay, affecting the company’s future valuation.

The reason this hurts the company is because competitors like Spirit and Frontier are beating LUV when it comes to traveling on a budget. If Southwest Airlines cannot beat these companies on cost, and also doesn’t have the luxurious travel options associated with larger airlines, it will eventually lose its identity in the eyes of customers.

Elliott Management’s proposed changes are not innovative enough to create any major impact. But even if they do, it will take a few more quarters for those changes to take effect. By then, LUV will have lost significant market share to competition. If the company then has to sacrifice profits to bring back customers, it could further push the point of profitability into the future. Investors are unlikely to pay for all that today, which makes the company a sell at today’s price levels.

Southwest Airlines is not on our latest list of the 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 23 hedge fund portfolios held LUV at the end of the second quarter which was 33 in the previous quarter. While we acknowledge the pitfalls of LUV as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than LUV but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.

READ NEXT: $30 Trillion Opportunity: 15 Best Humanoid Robot Stocks to Buy According to Morgan Stanley and Jim Cramer Says NVIDIA ‘Has Become A Wasteland’.

Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.

AI, Tariffs, Nuclear Power: One Undervalued Stock Connects ALL the Dots (Before It Explodes!)

Artificial intelligence is the greatest investment opportunity of our lifetime. The time to invest in groundbreaking AI is now, and this stock is a steal!

AI is eating the world—and the machines behind it are ravenous.

Each ChatGPT query, each model update, each robotic breakthrough consumes massive amounts of energy. In fact, AI is already pushing global power grids to the brink.

Wall Street is pouring hundreds of billions into artificial intelligence—training smarter chatbots, automating industries, and building the digital future. But there’s one urgent question few are asking:

Where will all of that energy come from?

AI is the most electricity-hungry technology ever invented. Each data center powering large language models like ChatGPT consumes as much energy as a small city. And it’s about to get worse.

Even Sam Altman, the founder of OpenAI, issued a stark warning:

“The future of AI depends on an energy breakthrough.”

Elon Musk was even more blunt:

“AI will run out of electricity by next year.”

As the world chases faster, smarter machines, a hidden crisis is emerging behind the scenes. Power grids are strained. Electricity prices are rising. Utilities are scrambling to expand capacity.

And that’s where the real opportunity lies…

One little-known company—almost entirely overlooked by most AI investors—could be the ultimate backdoor play. It’s not a chipmaker. It’s not a cloud platform. But it might be the most important AI stock in the US owns critical energy infrastructure assets positioned to feed the coming AI energy spike.

As demand from AI data centers explodes, this company is gearing up to profit from the most valuable commodity in the digital age: electricity.

The “Toll Booth” Operator of the AI Energy Boom

  • It owns critical nuclear energy infrastructure assets, positioning it at the heart of America’s next-generation power strategy.
  • It’s one of the only global companies capable of executing large-scale, complex EPC (engineering, procurement, and construction) projects across oil, gas, renewable fuels, and industrial infrastructure.
  • It plays a pivotal role in U.S. LNG exportation—a sector about to explode under President Trump’s renewed “America First” energy doctrine.

Trump has made it clear: Europe and U.S. allies must buy American LNG.

And our company sits in the toll booth—collecting fees on every drop exported.

But that’s not all…

As Trump’s proposed tariffs push American manufacturers to bring their operations back home, this company will be first in line to rebuild, retrofit, and reengineer those facilities.

AI. Energy. Tariffs. Onshoring. This One Company Ties It All Together.

While the world is distracted by flashy AI tickers, a few smart investors are quietly scooping up shares of the one company powering it all from behind the scenes.

AI needs energy. Energy needs infrastructure.

And infrastructure needs a builder with experience, scale, and execution.

This company has its finger in every pie—and Wall Street is just starting to notice.

Wall Street is noticing this company also because it is quietly riding all of these tailwinds—without the sky-high valuation.

While most energy and utility firms are buried under mountains of debt and coughing up hefty interest payments just to appease bondholders…

This company is completely debt-free.

In fact, it’s sitting on a war chest of cash—equal to nearly one-third of its entire market cap.

It also owns a huge equity stake in another red-hot AI play, giving investors indirect exposure to multiple AI growth engines without paying a premium.

And here’s what the smart money has started whispering…

The Hedge Fund Secret That’s Starting to Leak Out

This stock is so off-the-radar, so absurdly undervalued, that some of the most secretive hedge fund managers in the world have begun pitching it at closed-door investment summits.

They’re sharing it quietly, away from the cameras, to rooms full of ultra-wealthy clients.

Why? Because excluding cash and investments, this company is trading at less than 7 times earnings.

And that’s for a business tied to:

  • The AI infrastructure supercycle
  • The onshoring boom driven by Trump-era tariffs
  • A surge in U.S. LNG exports
  • And a unique footprint in nuclear energy—the future of clean, reliable power

You simply won’t find another AI and energy stock this cheap… with this much upside.

This isn’t a hype stock. It’s not riding on hope.

It’s delivering real cash flows, owns critical infrastructure, and holds stakes in other major growth stories.

This is your chance to get in before the rockets take off!

Disruption is the New Name of the Game: Let’s face it, complacency breeds stagnation.

AI is the ultimate disruptor, and it’s shaking the foundations of traditional industries.

The companies that embrace AI will thrive, while the dinosaurs clinging to outdated methods will be left in the dust.

As an investor, you want to be on the side of the winners, and AI is the winning ticket.

The Talent Pool is Overflowing: The world’s brightest minds are flocking to AI.

From computer scientists to mathematicians, the next generation of innovators is pouring its energy into this field.

This influx of talent guarantees a constant stream of groundbreaking ideas and rapid advancements.

By investing in AI, you’re essentially backing the future.

The future is powered by artificial intelligence, and the time to invest is NOW.

Don’t be a spectator in this technological revolution.

Dive into the AI gold rush and watch your portfolio soar alongside the brightest minds of our generation.

This isn’t just about making money – it’s about being part of the future.

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A New Dawn is Coming to U.S. Stocks

I work for one of the largest independent financial publishers in the world – representing over 1 million people in 148 countries.

We’re independently funding today’s broadcast to address something on the mind of every investor in America right now…

Should I put my money in Artificial Intelligence?

Here to answer that for us… and give away his No. 1 free AI recommendation… is 50-year Wall Street titan, Marc Chaikin.

Marc’s been a trader, stockbroker, and analyst. He was the head of the options department at a major brokerage firm and is a sought-after expert for CNBC, Fox Business, Barron’s, and Yahoo! Finance…

But what Marc’s most known for is his award-winning stock-rating system. Which determines whether a stock could shoot sky-high in the next three to six months… or come crashing down.

That’s why Marc’s work appears in every Bloomberg and Reuters terminal on the planet…

And is still used by hundreds of banks, hedge funds, and brokerages to track the billions of dollars flowing in and out of stocks each day.

He’s used this system to survive nine bear markets… create three new indices for the Nasdaq… and even predict the brutal bear market of 2022, 90 days in advance.

Click to continue reading…