By Josh Beckerman
Airline stocks were higher Friday, as several travel-related sectors gained after Merck & Co. reported favorable data for a Covid-19 antiviral treatment and JPMorgan said it believes a “current equity rally has room to run.”
JPMorgan cited factors including the planned easing of U.S. border restrictions and new data about the bank’s own employee travel, which it hopes is a “reasonable proxy” for broader financial services demand.
American Airlines Group Inc. was up 6% to $21.65, United Airlines Holdings Inc. rose 7% to $51.05 and Delta Air Lines Inc. gained 6% to $45.37.
JPMorgan said its “autumnal exercise of pushing our price targets forward by a year, accompanied by some routine modeling revisions,” led to a downgrade of Spirit Airlines Inc. to neutral from overweight, while Southwest Airlines Co. and Frontier Group Holdings Inc. were raised to overweight from neutral.
Southwest gained 6% to $54.41, Frontier increased 6% to $16.75 and Spirit rose 4% to $27.0. JetBlue Airways Corp. and Alaska Air Group Inc. shares were also higher, as were online travel, hotel and cruise companies.
Write to Josh Beckerman at josh.beckerman@wsj.com