What Happened?
Shares of aircraft leasing company FTAI Aviation (NASDAQ:FTAI) fell 11.1% in the morning session after the company reported third quarter earnings. Revenue and EBITDA were above expectations, and management raised full year guidance on the earnings call. But the stock moved down during the earnings call for a few reasons.
One, management disclosed that there was a sizable chunk of asset sales in the Leasing EBITDA number, which makes it a lower-quality number (less recurring).
Additionally, management stopped disclosing certain metrics, citing competitive reasons and adding that what is disclosed should be enough to understand and assess the health of the business.
Finally, there were bigger-picture questions from analysts about the sustainability of FTAI's demand and what performance could look like once the aviation supply chain normalizes. We'd note that the stock was up a lot heading into earnings, and expectations were likely very high.
The stock market overreacts to news, and big price drops can present good opportunities to buy high-quality stocks. Is now the time to buy FTAI Aviation? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
What The Market Is Telling Us
FTAI Aviation’s shares are quite volatile and have had 15 moves greater than 5% over the last year. But moves this big are rare even for FTAI Aviation and indicate this news significantly impacted the market’s perception of the business.
The biggest move we wrote about over the last year was 3 months ago when the stock gained 9.2% on the news that a Stifel analyst upgraded the stock's rating from Hold to Buy and raised the price target from $69 to $132. The new price target implied a potential 16% upside from where shares traded before the upgrade was announced. The analyst added, "the stock is worth buying given industry dynamics, even if considered expensive."
FTAI Aviation is up 191% since the beginning of the year, but at $132.10 per share, it is still trading 10.8% below its 52-week high of $148.09 from October 2024. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of FTAI Aviation’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $8,334.
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