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Like most passenger carriers, Delta isn’t close to turning a profit. The full-service network airline is expected to report sales of $3.7 billion, down 67% from a year earlier, according to consensus estimates. Wall Street expects Delta to report a $2 billion pretax loss, resulting in a loss of $2.50 per share.
Yet its sequential progress is likely to move the stock. Delta’s $2 billion loss would be an improvement over its $2.5 billion loss in the third quarter a sign that it’s on track to turning profitable later in the year. Wall Street expects the carrier to post another $855 million loss in the first quarter but sees an inflection point in the spring, with pretax income turning positive.
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Wall Street is now twisting itself in knots to find rationales in support of further gains for airline stocks. Hector Vivas/Getty Images
Airline stocks aren’t close to the deep values they were a few months ago, and the sector has largely stalled after soaring on vaccine news in November. Airline stocks are down an average 7% in the last month, versus a gain of 2.7% for the
Wall Street is now twisting itself in knots to find rationales in support of further gains. While estimates for 2021 earnings have been falling largely because the first quarter is looking weaker than expected analysts have been raising their price targets and multiples on the sector.