Alaska Air Group may be heading down the runway to take off from a long cup-with-handle base that began last April. It's been putting up some astounding earnings growth numbers lately including 830%, 72% and 283% EPS growth the last three quarters. Sales growth has been strong too. On Tuesday, the Relative Strength (RS) Rating for Alaska Air stock jumped into a higher percentile, as it got a lift from 65 to 72.
The raised 72 RS Rating means that Alaska Air stock is outflying 72% of all stocks on price performance. It's still eight points below a benchmark for the best stocks to buy and watch. The best stocks typically have an 80 or higher RS Rating in the early stages of their moves. See if Alaska Air can continue to show renewed price strength and hit that benchmark.
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Alaska Air Stock In Top 10% Overall
The Seattle, Wash.-based carrier also boasts a 90 Composite Rating. IBD's Composite Rating combines five separate proprietary ratings of fundamental and technical performance into one easy-to-use rating. The best growth stocks have a Composite Rating of 90 or better.
The company has a "just OK" 79 EPS Rating in spite of its terrific earnings performance this past year. The lower-than-ideal rating is attributable to earlier declines in profits as the pandemic shut down travel globally.
Bullishly, Alaska Air stock carries a B Accumulation/Distribution Rating, on an A+ to E scale. The B rating shows that big money investors such as ETFs and insurance company funds are buying its shares at a fairly brisk rate.
Alaska Air stock is trying to complete a cup-with-handle pattern with a 54.06 entry. See if the stock can clear the breakout price in volume at least 40% above average. Tuesday afternoon it traded up about 1% for the day.
Among Top 5 In Airlines Group
On Jan. 26, Alaska Air reported that its fourth quarter EPS shot up 283% to 92 cents per share, on a 31% leap in revenue to $2.48 billion.
"Despite many challenges during the year, we ran one of the best operations, signed five new labor deals, and executed the majority of our single fleet transition," Alaska Airlines CEO Ben Minicucci said in the earnings news release. "The results we posted today signal how well our teams are navigating this recovery."
Alaska Air stock holds the No. 4 rank among its peers in the Transportation-Airline industry group. United Airlines and Delta Air Lines are also among the group's highest-rated stocks.
IBD's proprietary RS Rating measures technical performance by using a 1 (worst) to 99 (best) score that shows how a stock's price action over the last 52 weeks compares to the rest of the market.
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