Here’s Why Rothschild & Co Upgraded American Airlines (AAL) Farooq Wed, November 11, 2026 at 3:40 PM EST 4 min read AAL -0.07% ^GSPC +1.31% Trade AAL on Coinbase Trading disclosure Trading disclosure The above button links to Coinbase. Yahoo Finance is not a broker-dealer or investment adviser and does not offer securities or cryptocurrencies for sale or facilitate trading. Coinbase pays us for certain activity generated through this link. Prices displayed are informational.
We just published a list of the 10 Stocks Analysts Are Upgrading Right Now and American Airlines (NASDAQ:AAL) ranked 7th on this list.
Wall Street spent the week swinging between relief and worry. A sharp rally on Monday gave way to a pullback on Tuesday, when a hotter-than-expected inflation report landed just as Federal Reserve officials were talking openly about raising interest rates again.
The swings came on the heels of the S&P 500's biggest weekly drop since April 2025.
The Consumer Price Index rose 0.4% in October, the Labor Department said, above the 0.3% gain that economists polled by Reuters had expected. Core prices, which leave out food and energy, rose 0.3%, against a forecast of 0.2%.
Traders now see an 84% chance that the Fed raises rates by a quarter point in December, according to Yahoo Finance, and bets on a half-point move jumped from 0% to 15% in a day. Fed Governor Christopher Waller said the central bank should raise rates in December even if inflation had cooled last month, and should consider a half-point hike if the picture worsens. Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan said the Fed needs at least two more quarter-point increases.
Not every official sounded as hawkish. Kansas City Fed President Jeff Schmid said he believes the current policy rate is "fairly accommodative," while Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman stopped short of calling for hikes but said inflation is the central bank's top priority. You might also be interested in reading our piece on stocks that Wall Street analysts see as affordable.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.30% on Tuesday, the S&P 500 lost 0.38% and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.74%, and declining issues outnumbered advancers by 2.27-to-1 on the New York Stock Exchange. That gave back part of Monday's rally, when the S&P 500 rose 2.35% for its biggest daily gain since April 8 as a drop in oil prices tempered inflation fears. On Tuesday, shorter-term Treasury yields jumped after the report and the US dollar strengthened.
Last week's selloff followed a sweeping Democratic victory in the US midterm elections, which fed concerns that new regulations could dent the AI trade. For another angle on where analysts see room to run, see our list of NYSE stocks with huge upside potential.
James McCann, senior economist at Edward Jones, told Reuters that "there are some fears that underlying price pressures are starting to build again." The Labor Department releases producer prices on Friday, and the odds of a December rate hike were above 80% before Tuesday's report, according to CME FedWatch.
American Airlines made it to our list because it received an analyst upgrade on Tuesday and has an average upside potential of 12%. Rothschild & Co Redburn analyst Gavin Tennant upgraded American Airlines to Buy from Neutral on Tuesday with a $17.50 price target, writing, "We have found it increasingly difficult to justify a Neutral rating on American." He points to an improved network, investment in its hubs, a richer mix of premium seats, disciplined capacity, and room for margins and free cash flow to grow in later years, with fares expected to stay elevated through 2027.
The latest quarter shows the demand behind that view. American's operations center on hubs such as Dallas Fort Worth, where it has been investing. Total unit revenue, which is what the airline earns per seat mile flown, rose 14.5% across every cabin and geography, and revenue from managed corporate accounts rose 28%. The strain is fuel. Higher prices tied to the Iran war added $1.9 billion to third-quarter operating expenses, which is why the shares have lagged this year. Management says it is on pace for nearly $1 billion in annual savings by year-end to help offset that. We recently looked at how much work American's premium push is doing for the rest of the plane.
While we acknowledge the risk and potential of AAL as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock.
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