Business

Budget air carriers have been snatching up travelers and market share from troubled legacy carriers for the better part of two decades, and now they're whipping them on the Internet, too.

Airlines say it’s the right time to fly touting cheap fares and less crowding but special holiday fees could keep travelers grounded on Turkey Day and well into next year. The Air Transport Association an industry trade group released data Friday that showed that 3% fewer people took to the skies during the month of October despite ticket prices being down 12.5% year-over-year. This pushed passenger revenue down for the 12th straight month.The data which was based on a random sampling of the member airlines showed current prices to be on par to prices during the 1998 traveling season ...

The Claymore/NYSE Arca Airline ETF (NYSE: FAA) isn't heavily traded and doesn't generate much in the way of headlines considering that is top holdings are always making news, so the ETF Professor thought it might be a good idea to take a look at this ETF.

This isn't the easiest sector to invest in. Most airlines are cash-strapped and held hostage to energy prices and other factors such as swine flu. Now, some major airlines are charging additional fees for travelling during peak travel days on top of those annoying baggage fees.

With consumers looking to save cash, holiday travel is expected to decline this year. In fact, 2009 will likely be the first year in over a decade that holiday travel is down, costing airlines over $4 billion in the process.

That makes FAA look richly valued. The ETF is up 20% year-to-date, lagging the S&P 500 by 10%. FAA's bullish run may be grounded after the airlines start reporting fourth-quarter earnings, meaning an opportunity for a short may appear in the coming months.

FAA's top holdings are Delta Airlines (NYSE: DAL), Continental (NYSE: CAL) and Southwest (NYSE: LUV).

Visit StreetInsider.com at http://www.streetinsider.com/news.php?st=p&id=5126639 for the full story.

FAA Says Air-traffic Scheduling Problems Solved

It appears that the short haul carriers are picking up market share. Whether it is a company like Allegiant (ALGT) or Continental’s (CAL) Express, many been making strides in this tough climate. At the same time United and American are still increasing load factors. How much is at below market price though in an attempt [...] Related posts:

1. Allegiant (ALGT) – October YoY Comps Are Strong
2. S&P Sector Performance Detail
3. Links and Reading for December 9th

BloggingStocks: American Airlines (NYSE: AMR - option chain) shares are rising today along with most other major airlines this morning after the International Air Transport Association said international passenger demand rose 0.3% year-over-year in September, the ... Read more

What a wild week we are having!

We dumped our shorts as planned yesterday morning, getting a very nice dip at the open and my 9:36 Alert to Members was even titled "Take Those Short Profits!" and our upside targets were set (as they were in the morning post) at: Dow 10,087, S&P 1,096, Nasdaq 2,173, NYSE 7,204 and Russell 623.  Where did we finish?  Dow 1,081, S&P 1,092, Nasdaq 2,165, NYSE 7,182 and Russell 613 - so a bit short of all of our targets but not bad considering we were opening 167 points below that on the Dow so perhaps I can be forgiven for a 6-point miss…

If knowing about massive market moves in advance would be helpful to you - please consider subscribing to our service.  If you are already a member and know someone who might like to try our newsletter, you can send them a free trial subscription using this link and you can earn yourselves discounts on membership renewals for each friend who opts into the free trial.  We have over 19,000 people on our Newsletter list now and I want to see if we can break 30,000 by the end of the year now that our new mail server is up and running (we’ve been on hold for a month as we filled up our old server!).  Your help in this matter would be greatly appreciated.  PSW Report Members can extend their subscriptions at no cost simply by referring others to a free trial report - my little experiment in viral marketing…

Even our free PSW Report readers would have done great just following the trades we had in last week’s Wrap-Up (Report subscribers get to read our articles without the 48-hour delay).  We had GS Nov $210s shorted at .87, now .35 (up 60%), CERN short $85 calls at $4.15, now $3.10 (up 25%), ISRG Apr puts and calls sold for $39.20, now $36 (up 8%), PARD at $6.87, now $7.35 (up 7%), NTRI at $18.60, now $19.15 (up 3%)… 

We had other trades that are still in progress.  ICE notably burned us so far, but we rolled them up and shorted them some more yesterday  (now $106.56).  We’ve had a wild mix of short and long trades this week as we TRY to get more bullish on the markets but yesterday’s run-up had us reloading Thursday’s successful short plays as that set made 20% or more across the board in less than a day.  Note…

BloggingStocks: Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE: LUV), the Dallas-based low-cost air carrier, is scheduled to discuss its third quarter 2009 financial results in a conference call Thursday at 11:30 AM ET hosted by CEO Gary Kelly and CFO Laura Wright. You can catch the ... Read more

Yesterday, United Airlines, a wholly owned subsidiary of UAL Corp. (UAUA) announced preliminary mainline traffic results for September. The company reported mainline passenger load factor of 81.2%. Total scheduled mainline revenue passenger miles (RPMs) decreased 1.1% on a capacity decrease of 3.7% in scheduled mainline available seat miles (ASMs) compared with the same period in [...]

(UAUA) UAL Corporation’s United Airlines’ September Traffic Down

It appears that the short haul carriers are picking up market share. Whether it is a company like Allegiant (ALGT) or Continental’s (CAL) Express, many been making strides in this tough climate. At the same time United and American are still increasing load factors. How much is at below market price though in an attempt [...] Related posts:

1. Allegiant (ALGT) – October YoY Comps Are Strong
2. S&P Sector Performance Detail
3. Links and Reading for December 9th

Colleen S. King takes a look at news on the Street before the market open.

Tom Dorsey and Tammy DeRosier - Regressed to Mean

Schaeffer's Laura Houser takes a look at activity on the Street after the market close

Schaeffer's Carly Schaeffer takes a look at activity on the Street ahead of the market open