In the third quarter, Southwest Airlines Co. (LUV) is expected to post narrow losses. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Southwest is a loss of 4 cents per share. Southwest may see a drain in its profits from non-cash charges in its fuel hedging program. As of June 30, 2009, the company had fuel derivative instruments in place for approximately 30% of its expected third quarter 2009 jet fuel consumption. Though revenue remains a problem for the airline, it is trying to entice the passengers with cheaper prices. More traffic and less capacity or available seats led to a rise in average occupancy for Southwest in September. Load factor jumped to 74.7%, a gain of more than 11% from Sept. 2008. These full loads were built with cheap fares and other promotions which the airline has been offering of late. There have been signs that demand ...

This Top-Performing Industry May Surprise You

Try this one out on your family and friends: ask them to name one of the top three best-performing industries of the past three months. You’ll likely get an assortment of answers, but we bet major airlines won’t feature in there too often.

But it’s true. The industry comes in at #3 over the past three months, with carriers like AMR Corp (NYSE: AMR), UAL Corp (NYSE: UAUA) and US Airways (NYSE: LCC) all racking up huge gains.

This is a far cry from the airlines’ “winter of discontent” in early 2009, as demand evaporated and credit froze up, extending the worst downturn in the industry’s history.

But new research from Morningstar shows that even the most battered of industries can still produce gains for investors. The firm tracked 10 funds with

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JetBlue Airways Corporation (NASDAQ:JBLU) needs no introduction to Master Picks subscribers.  UBS upgraded five major airline stocks on Friday and of course left out JetBlue.  Thus the Masters are once again going to bat for JetBlue, which happens to be the only airline company that has 1.1 million followers on Twitter, more than any company except Whole Foods (...

What Investors Can Learn From the Recent Celebrity Outbursts

by Marc Lichtenfeld, Advisory Panelist

There seems to be a breakdown in decorum lately. A few very public examples:

Congressman Joe Wilson (R-SC) yells out, “You lie!” at President Barack Obama while he’s addressing Congress about his healthcare reform plan. Tennis star Serena Williams threatens to shove a “bleeping” ball down the “bleeping” throat of a tennis official when a call went against her. Rapper Kanye West rips the microphone out of a 19-year-old award winner’s hands and proceeds to tell the audience that someone else was more deserving.

Moronic behavior, for sure. And of course, all three have issued apologies. But if you believe that there’s no such thing as negative press, all three have grabbed some free publicity. Wilson received over $1 million in campaign contributions after his outburst.

But what do these situations have

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After surging to almost one-year highs Wednesday, stocks took a step back as worries that the recent rally has gone too far, too fast resurfaced.  Investors pulled out profits even as latest round of upbeat economic data tried to convince them that a recovery is indeed underway.  Shares of companies that have led the recent advance failed to find favor amid a lackluster trading session.  Although the retreat was modest, it signaled a growing belief that the rally is overextended.

The Dow Jones industrial average declined 7.79 points, or 0.08%, to end the day at 9,783.92. The broad Standard & Poor's 500 Index retreated 3.27 points, or 0.31%, at 1,065.49 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index eased 6.40 points, or 0.30%, to end at 2,126.75.  On the New York Stock Exchange, declining shares beat those that advanced by eight to seven on volume of 1.52 billion shares.  At Wednesday's

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – August 28, 2009 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBV), BB&T Corp. (BBT), Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) and AMR Corp. (AMR).

Get the most recent insight from Zacks Equity Research with the free Profit from the Pros newsletter: http://at.zacks.com/?id=5513

Here are highlights from Thursday’s Analyst Blog:

Thrifts Defy Troubles

Thrifts are required to have at least 65% of their loans as mortgages and other consumer loans, which makes them particularly vulnerable to the housing downturn. But banks have no such compulsion. However, the banking industry is likely to face further special

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Good news continues for Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ). After delivering modest third quarter results, the company won a deal with American Airlines parent AMR Corp. (AMR). According to the agreement, Hewlett-Packard will be developing a system for AMR, which will take care of pricing, reservations, flight information and check-in.   We believe this will improve the overall travel experience of American Airlines customers. This will specifically help the company in efficient baggage transfer, which will ultimately lead to lesser lost baggage, passengers getting updated information about cancelled or rescheduled flights and user-friendly check in process. The process may take around 4 to 5 years to set up. The pricing of the deal was not declared.   We believe that if Hewlett-Packard can execute this project efficiently, this experience will take the company a long way in winning similar projects from other major players in the airlines industry. Although ...

Recently, major Mexican airlines companies reported a decrease in passenger traffic for the month of June.

Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacifico S.A.B. de C.V. (PAC) announced a 20.1% decline in total terminal passengers year-over-year, comprised of 17.5% decrease in domestic passengers and 25.4% drop in international passengers.

Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste S.A.B. de C.V. (ASR) announced a fall of 28.4%, with 17.6% in the domestic sector and 36.7% in the international sector.

Grupo Aeroportuario del Centro Norte S.A.B. de C.V. (OMAB) reported a decrease of 20.5% in total passenger traffic, with domestic traffic down 18.4% and international traffic tumbling 32.3%.

Passenger traffic decreased not only in June, but throughout the second quarter of 2009. PAC’s passenger traffic was down 36.6% in May and 10.4% in April. ASR’s passenger traffic dropped 50.7% in May and 2.1% in April. OMAB reported a fall of 39.7% in May and 17.7%

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The markets were down for most of the day, until a late rally sent two of the three major indexes positive, all except the NASDAQ which was down 0.19%.  The Dow Jones and S&P 500 were up 0.32% and 0.14% respectively, closing at 8799.26 and 946.21.  The 10-year saw prices climb once again, as the yield ended at 3.792%.  Oil was down today settling at $72.04, while gold also had an off day settling at $940.70.

Late Thursday night, Blackrock [BLK: 176.56, -6.04 (-3.31%)] agreed to buy Barclays Global Investors from Barclays Plc [BCS: 19.27, -0.63 (-3.17%)] for 37.8 million shares of common stock and equivalents and $6.6 billion in cash.  The deal was worth a total of $13.5B.  This deal will make Blackrock and BGI the world’s biggest fund manager, managing over $2.7 trillion in assets.  The buzz about a potential buy of BGI by

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NetScout Systems, Inc. (

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