Shares of Spirit Airlines (SAVE) are up more than 36% over the past few days as another merger rumor is making headlines. This time, its competitor Frontier Airlines is trying to bring the budget airliner into its ecosystem.

This comes as Spirit Airlines is on the brink of bankruptcy, meaning any sort of merger deal would likely involve more comprehensive debt restructuring plans. 

The company just had its deadline to refinance $1.1 billion in debt extended a few months till December 23rd. It’s used up all its $300 million in credit that was originally set up more than 4 years ago. Those borrowings will mature in just 2 years. 

In other words, the walls are closing in – which is why Spirit Airlines will certainly be more inclined to get a deal done in an effort to pull out of this hole.

Frontier Airlines and Spirit Airlines have actually been flirting with each other since 2016. More recently, the two airliners came up with a deal in February of 2022 that would have resulted in a $2.9 billion acquisition. 

It obviously never came to fruition, though, with the deal dissipating in just a matter of months. The reason? Spirit got a better offer from its other cheap competitor – JetBlue – for $3.8 billion.

This is the second time Spirit Airlines has been rumored to be in merger talks with another airliner this year, so it’s worth noting that nothing is set in stone yet. The first attempt with JetBlue didn’t go over well, as the deal was struck down by a judge back in January of this year.

At the time, SAVE sat at roughly $6.91 per share – we wrote about this and mentioned that it was time to SELL this stock. Today, SAVE has fallen to only $2.90 per share. It’s lost 82% of its value through 2024 thus far.

So, where does that leave current investors that are still holding onto hope, or speculative traders eyeballing this opportunity? We’ve taken another look at SAVE in the VectorVest system and found something interesting. Here’s what you need to know…

SAVE Has Poor Upside Potential and Safety, But Excellent Timing Makes the Stock a BUY

VectorVest is a proprietary stock rating system that distills complex technical and fundamental data into clear, actionable insights. It helps you win more trades with less work and stress, eliminating human error, guesswork, and emotion from your decision-making process.

You’re given all that you need to make calculated moves in 3 simple ratings: relative value (RV), relative safety (RS), and relative timing (RT). Each sits on a scale of 0.00-2.00 with 1.00 being the average, allowing for quick and easy interpretation.

But it gets even better, because the system issues a buy, sell, or hold recommendation for any given stock at any given time based on its overall VST rating. Here’s what we found for SAVE:

  • Poor Upside Potential: The RV rating compares a stock’s long-term price appreciation potential (based on a 3-year projection), AAA corporate bond rates, and risk. This makes it a much better indicator than the typical comparison of price to value alone. SAVE has a poor RV rating of 0.76.
  • Poor Safety: The RS rating is a risk indicator. It’s computed from an analysis of the company’s financial consistency & predictability, debt-to-equity ratio, business longevity, sales volume, price volatility, and other factors. The RS rating of 0.67 is also poor for SAVE.
  • Excellent Timing: The RT rating is based on the direction, dynamics, and magnitude of the stock’s price movement. It’s calculated day over day, week over week, quarter over quarter, and year over year. This is the one thing SAVE has going for it, as the rumors have resulted in an RT rating of 2.00, tipping out the scale.

The overall VST rating of 1.36 is very good for SAVE, and the stock is currently rated a BUY in the VectorVest system. But don’t make your next move without taking advantage of this free stock analysis. Set yourself up for a smooth, profitable trade at VectorVest today!

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VectorVest advocates buying safe, undervalued stocks, rising in price. SAVE has started to find its footing, up 36% in the past week on another merger rumor. The stock may have poor upside potential and safety, but excellent timing makes it a BUY today.

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