US airline stocks continued to rise yesterday on the back of oil prices that fell to a four-year low.
Shares of Delta Air Lines, the largest US airline by market capitalisation, climbed 4% to $42.32.
The carrier announced that passenger revenue in October climbed 3% on the year.
Shares of Southwest Airlines gained 3% to $36.43 while American Airlines rose 2% to $42.70.
“Airline stocks gained on falling oil prices and as investors have rotated out of rail stocks, since moving oil has been a huge driver of rail,” Dave Lutz, head of exchange traded funds at Jones Trading, told the Financial Times.
“In the absence of Ebola headlines, coupled with good industry data – airline stocks have been a place to ‘hide’.”
Airlines have been one of the best performing sectors of the year. Southwest Airlines and Delta have been two of the best performers on the US Standard & Poors 500 stock market index.
The Dow Jones transportation index closed up nearly 0.4% on Tuesday and is up nearly 19% so far this year.