American Airlines stock jumps after big profit beat, upbeat 2024 outlook

Shares of American Airlines Group Inc.
AAL,
-0.50%
jumped 3.8% in premarket trading Thursday, after the air carrier beat fourth-quarter earnings expectations and provided an upbeat 2024 profit outlook. Net income dropped to $19 million, or 3 cents a share, from $803 million, or $1.14 a share, in the year-ago period. Excluding nonrecurring items, adjusted earnings per share of 29 cents were well above the FactSet consensus of 11 cents. Revenue fell 1% to $13.06 billion, but was above the FactSet consensus of $13.01 billion, while 2023 revenue grew 7.8% to a record $52.79 billion. Load factor slipped to 83.6% from 83.9%, but beat expectations of 82.9%, as capacity growth of 5.8% outpaced traffic growth of 5.4%. Looking ahead, the company expects an adjusted per-share loss of between 15 cents and 35 cents for the first quarter, which surrounds the FactSet loss consensus of 22 cents, and projects 2024 adjusted EPS of between $2.25 and $3.25, which is above the FactSet consensus of $2.14. The stock has run up 26.2% over the past three months through Wednesday, while the U.S. Global Jets ETF
JETS,
+0.70%
has climbed 25.4% and the S&P 500
SPX,
+0.08%
has advanced 16.3%.