igggy

Airlines Hit Hard by Bevy of Factors

At some point I looked at monthly performance of airline stocks and CAL on average goes up some 7% in October. Could be data mining but other airlines perform well in October too.
To the author: who said 'investors' own airline stocks? Maybe as a bet against oil. I'd rather own refiners for that.

Pair Trading the Friendly Skies

I have a better pair trading strategy: short both! (if you can find any UAUA shares to short)

Airline CEOs: Time to Hedge Your Fuel Costs

Looks like everyone thinks oil is going higher. Eventually, yes. Next year - not so sure. Perhaps, we'll see $30-40 oil again.
Long HA (short term)

Why Airline Stocks Are So Often Bad Investments

I am surprised no one mentioned the difference between LUV (and a couple of other successful lower-cost carriers) and the legacy airlines. Part of the problem is that at the legacy airlines both the management and the unionized employees treat their company as a cash cow rarely thinking about the future.

One example,:UAUA will likely file for bankruptcy again in the next couple of years. They've been there twice already after 9/11 and with the current management they are likely to go that route again. Unfortunately, airlines in bankruptcies seem to keep flying as if nothing happened (who gave Frontier their money and why?) which puts more pressure on the surviving carriers. Even LUV might feel more pressure soon. They are famous for never laying off a single employee which could be a problem if travel demand falls off a cliff.

Of course, if oil drops below say, $70 airline stocks might be the trade of the year but I wouldn't bet on that.