Greg Wooley Sells 17,726 Shares of SkyWest (NASDAQ:SKYW) Stock

SkyWest, Inc. (NASDAQ:SKYW) VP Greg Wooley sold 17,726 shares of SkyWest stock in a transaction on Thursday, July 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $108.55, for a total value of $1,924,157.30. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president owned 53,323 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,788,211.65. The trade was a 24.95% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website.

SkyWest Price Performance

Shares of SKYW stock opened at $106.97 on Friday. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $94.74 and a 200 day simple moving average of $94.78. The company has a market cap of $4.15 billion, a P/E ratio of 10.63, a P/E/G ratio of 1.53 and a beta of 1.45. The company has a quick ratio of 0.51, a current ratio of 0.57 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59. SkyWest, Inc. has a twelve month low of $77.89 and a twelve month high of $123.94.

SkyWest (NASDAQ:SKYW) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, July 23rd. The transportation company reported $2.54 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $2.70 by ($0.16). The business had revenue of $1.10 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.11 billion. SkyWest had a return on equity of 14.58% and a net margin of 9.78%.The firm’s revenue was up 6.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $2.91 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that SkyWest, Inc. will post 10.69 EPS for the current fiscal year.

SkyWest announced that its board has authorized a share repurchase plan on Thursday, July 23rd that authorizes the company to repurchase $250.00 million in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the transportation company to repurchase up to 6.6% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are often an indication that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Institutional Trading of SkyWest

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in SKYW. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of SkyWest by 3.2% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 4,966,485 shares of the transportation company’s stock valued at $498,685,000 after buying an additional 152,863 shares during the period. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its position in SkyWest by 0.8% during the 1st quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 2,529,333 shares of the transportation company’s stock worth $232,260,000 after buying an additional 20,678 shares during the period. State Street Corp grew its holdings in SkyWest by 0.5% during the 4th quarter. State Street Corp now owns 1,517,700 shares of the transportation company’s stock worth $152,392,000 after acquiring an additional 8,117 shares during the last quarter. Fuller & Thaler Asset Management Inc. grew its holdings in SkyWest by 27.5% during the 4th quarter. Fuller & Thaler Asset Management Inc. now owns 1,184,956 shares of the transportation company’s stock worth $118,981,000 after acquiring an additional 255,408 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. increased its position in SkyWest by 2.2% in the 4th quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 859,843 shares of the transportation company’s stock valued at $86,337,000 after acquiring an additional 18,422 shares during the period. 81.30% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms recently issued reports on SKYW. Citigroup upped their price objective on shares of SkyWest from $95.00 to $105.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, June 26th. The Goldman Sachs Group lowered shares of SkyWest from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and cut their target price for the company from $126.00 to $115.00 in a research report on Thursday, July 2nd. Weiss Ratings raised shares of SkyWest from a “hold (c)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 16th. Finally, TD Cowen upped their price target on shares of SkyWest from $98.00 to $115.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, July 2nd. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, one has issued a Buy rating and four have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $119.40.

SkyWest Company Profile

SkyWest, Inc (NASDAQ: SKYW) is a regional airline holding company that provides air transportation services through its primary subsidiary, SkyWest Airlines. The company operates flights under capacity purchase agreements with major carriers such as United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, American Airlines and Alaska Airlines. By specializing in regional connectivity, SkyWest links smaller communities to larger hubs using a fleet of regional jets and turboprop aircraft.

Headquartered in St. George, Utah, SkyWest oversees all aspects of its airline operations, including flight scheduling, crew training and aircraft maintenance.