Southwest Airline's Profits Head South

What goes up must eventually come down.

We've all been witness to the rise in the price of a barrel of oil.

It correlates all to well with filling up at the pump and dips severely into our earnings.

Well, airlines have it even worse and they have deeper pockets.

Southwest Airline has made some smart choices in the past and hedged their fuel prices before sky rocket oil prices could cripple their operation.

Those that didn't hedge had it far worse in a changing environment dependent on raw, crude oil.

Recently, however, Southwest has been plagued with the price of oil, but in the reverse direction; oil prices have fallen below their hedged dollar amount.

One thing was evident, consumers have benefited at the pump.

Southwest, on-the-other-hand, took a hard hit and for the first time in 17-years their profit-margin shrunk considerably.

Market predictability plays a key role in gauging a hedge fund's success.

Sometimes there are winners, but other times there are losers.

As the price of oil continues to drop, Southwest could possible see more profits fly out the window.