Airline stocks: Buffett losses are made worse by impatience

Warren Buffett is widely quoted as saying: “The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient.” His investment in the four largest U.S. airlines through Berkshire Hathaway Inc. now appears to be one of those transfers. American Airlines Group Inc., Delta Air Lines Inc., Southwest Airlines Co. and United Airlines Holdings Inc. have doubled on average since Buffett disclosed last May that his company no longer owned shares. All of them except American are back above their price in mid-2016, just before Berkshire started building its stakes.

 

Airline stocks

(by market cap)                             Company name Mkt Cap▼

ETF

JETS  - U.S. Global Jets ETF

• DAL Delta Air Lines 39.57 B
• AAL American Airlines 36.59 B
• LUV Southwest Airlines 27.91 B
• UAL United Continental 13.53B
• ALK Alaska Air Group 7. 59 B
• LTM LATAM Airlines  6.45 B (Chile-based)
• SAVE Spirit Airlines  6.13 B
• JBLU JetBlue Airways  4.43 B
• ALGT  Allegiant Travel    2.49 B
• VA  Virgin America     1.54 B
• HA Hawaiian Holdings 1.24 B
• SKYW SkyWest, Inc. 631 M; regional airline

++ AZUL  (Brazil)
++MESA; regional airline

++ULCC
--

• RJET Republic Airways  643 M -- went private after filing for bankruptcy protection in 2016.

finviz charts (day's change, new window): https://finviz.com/screener.ashx?v=211&ta=0&o=-change&t=DAL,LUV,UAL,AAL,LTM,ALK,SAVE,JBLU,SKYW,RJET,HA,ALGT,VA