Will Ryanair (RYAAY) Stock Continue to Soar?

Cheap doesn’t always equal good — but in the case of Ryanair Holdings (NASDAQ: RYAAY), the focus on affordability has turned into quite a successful business model.

There are plenty of ways that the airline keeps costs down, from focusing on quick turnaround times and operating a single aircraft type to reduce maintenance costs to charging extra for services like seat selection and checked luggage. It might not be top-of-the-line — but it’s been shown to work.

Case in point — Ryanair’s latest quarterly report, covering Q1 FY26, published on July 21. Earnings per share (EPS) came in at $1.74, ahead of consensus estimates, which were pegged at $1.49. Profits exceeded analyst estimates by roughly $117 million — and came in 128% higher than in Q1 of 2025.

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Following the report, RYAAY shares surged by 6.7%, which has brought year-to-date (YTD) returns up to 45.65%. However, there’s reason to believe that the stock, which is currently trading near an all-time high (ATH), will continue to rally.

As for the future? Let’s see what Wall Street has to say. After the earnings beat, Raymond James researcher Savanthi Syth (a top 11% rated analyst) reiterated a Strong Buy rating, and hiked her price target from $70 to $76. Syth’s revised forecast implies a 21.60% upside.

But analyst ratings are only one piece of the puzzle. For a more comprehensive overview, we’ll turn to our proprietary quant rating system — Zen Ratings.

Here’s how it works — each stock is evaluated using 115 factors that correlate with above-average returns, divided across seven Component Grade ratings. The system tracks approximately 4,600 stocks — only the top 5% receive a Zen Rating of A, which corresponds to an average annual return of 32.52%.

RYAAY is one such stock — it ranks in the top 2% of the equities that we track. To be more precise, it’s actually the 66th highest-rated stock at the moment.

We’ll have to take a look at those Component Grade ratings to see what it is that makes Ryanair a solid pick.

First, let’s deal with Value. It isn’t a particularly strong point — but RYAAY is trading at a price-to-earnings (P/E) of 19.01x, far below the market average of 31.72x. In terms of this Component Grade rating, Ryanair shares rank in the top 37% of equities.

Next up is the balance sheet. The company is actively deleveraging and has reduced its debt to equity (D/E) ratio from 2 to 1.49 within the past five years. When it comes to Financials, RYAAY ranks in the 75th percentile.

Growth is where things get interesting. The company’s earnings are forecast to grow at 15.84% per year — while revenue is forecast to grow at 8.76%, outpacing the industry average of 5.41%. In this category, Ryanair ranks in the top 11% of equities.

Next up, we have Momentum — here, RYAAY shares rank in the 94th percentile, having rallied up 45.65% on a year-to-date (YTD) basis. Our Sentiment Component Grade rating, which factors in analyst estimate changes, ratings upgrades, and short interest, puts Ryanair in the top 3%.

And finally, we have our Artificial Intelligence Component Grade rating, which leverages a neural network trained on two decades of fundamental and technical data to evaluate stocks. In this regard, RYAAY is in the top 2% of stocks. 

So, to summarize — we’re looking at a high-momentum stock which seems set for further growth and is trading at a decent valuation, despite a strong showing since the start of the year. Moreover, the business is actively shoring up its financial position. Even if the wider macro condition deteriorates, as a low-cost airline, Ryanair has a degree of resilience that its peers and rivals do not.

Lastly, there’s one hidden factor that could serve to prop up RYAAY even further — the stock will most likely join the FTSE Russell indices in September, having already been added to the MSCI World Index at the end of May. Index inclusions often act as short-term catalysts, as they trigger passive inflows from ETFs and mutual funds that track those benchmarks.

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