Airlines help explain the market rally — and their stocks are soaring to post-COVID altitudes

Warren Buffett just spat out his Coke... Exactly a month ago, the investment legend sold Berkshire Hathaway's entire airline stake (at a $3.5B loss). Air travel was down 95% compared to 2019, and even long-term obsessed Warren gave airlines a vote of no confidence. But airline stocks have rebounded big since then:

• Since May 5th, American Airlines stock is up 76%, Delta is up 59%, Southwest is up 45%, and United is up 62% — those are America's 4 largest airlines (and also the ones Berkshire sold).
• As the economy slowly reopens, airline stocks (along with other corona-conomy losers) have been some of the biggest gainers.
• The hype for homebound stocks like Zoom and Slack has chilled — shares of both companies actually fell after they reported high-growth earnings (when success becomes boring).

But it all flies back to the data... Investors are focused on a fresh uptick in air travel, a trend that airlines believe will continue as summer approaches.

• On April 16th, TSA checkpoint data revealed that passenger volume was just 3.6% of last year's. On June 3 (aka 2 days ago), that number rose to 13.6%.
• Airlines are adding more flights as demand picks up: American plans to fly 55% of its domestic schedule in July, up from 20% in May.