JetBlue Airways Co. (NASDAQ:JBLU) Short Interest Down 5.8% in October

JetBlue Airways Co. (NASDAQ:JBLU) was the target of a large decline in short interest in October. As of October 15th, there was short interest totalling 50,810,000 shares, a decline of 5.8% from the September 30th total of 53,960,000 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 17,980,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 2.8 days. Currently, 16.4% of the shares of the stock are short sold.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

JBLU has been the topic of several research reports. Citigroup upped their price target on JetBlue Airways from $6.00 to $7.75 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 22nd. Evercore ISI lifted their target price on shares of JetBlue Airways from $4.00 to $5.00 and gave the company an “in-line” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 3rd. StockNews.com raised JetBlue Airways to a “sell” rating in a research note on Friday, October 11th. TD Cowen increased their target price on shares of JetBlue Airways from $5.00 to $6.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, September 6th. Finally, Bank of America upgraded shares of JetBlue Airways from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $3.00 to $6.00 in a research note on Monday, September 9th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have given a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $5.98.

JetBlue Airways Price Performance

Shares of JBLU stock opened at $5.70 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $1.98 billion, a P/E ratio of -2.26 and a beta of 1.92. The company has a current ratio of 0.54, a quick ratio of 0.50 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.86. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $6.18 and a two-hundred day moving average of $5.92. JetBlue Airways has a 12 month low of $3.42 and a 12 month high of $8.07.

JetBlue Airways (NASDAQ:JBLU) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 29th. The transportation company reported ($0.16) earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($0.26) by $0.10. JetBlue Airways had a negative return on equity of 10.29% and a negative net margin of 10.18%. The company had revenue of $2.37 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.36 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted ($0.39) EPS. The company’s revenue was up .5% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts expect that JetBlue Airways will post -0.91 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Trading of JetBlue Airways

Several large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in JBLU. Point72 Asset Management L.P. raised its holdings in shares of JetBlue Airways by 715.3% in the second quarter. Point72 Asset Management L.P. now owns 1,630,622 shares of the transportation company’s stock valued at $9,930,000 after buying an additional 1,430,622 shares during the last quarter. American Century Companies Inc. grew its position in shares of JetBlue Airways by 16.4% during the 2nd quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 8,041,025 shares of the transportation company’s stock worth $48,970,000 after buying an additional 1,135,217 shares during the period. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. acquired a new position in JetBlue Airways during the third quarter valued at approximately $5,311,000. Donald Smith & CO. Inc. grew its holdings in shares of JetBlue Airways by 6.5% in the 1st quarter. Donald Smith & CO. Inc. now owns 13,256,094 shares of the transportation company’s stock valued at $98,360,000 after buying an additional 805,404 shares during the period. Finally, Quantbot Technologies LP increased its holdings in shares of JetBlue Airways by 1,932.3% in the second quarter. Quantbot Technologies LP now owns 588,893 shares of the transportation company’s stock worth $3,586,000 after acquiring an additional 559,917 shares in the last quarter. 83.71% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

About JetBlue Airways

JetBlue Airways Corporation provides air transportation services. The company operates a fleet of Airbus A321, Airbus A220, Airbus A321neo, Airbus A320 Restyled, Airbus A320, Airbus A321 with Mint, Airbus A321neo with Mint, Airbus A321neoLR with Mint, and Embraer E190 aircraft. It also serves 100 destinations across the United States, the Caribbean and Latin America, Canada, and Europe.