Why Azul Stock Just Popped 22%

Shares of Brazilian discount airline Azul (NYSE: AZUL) bounced back from a 6.5% loss Tuesday and were racing ahead 22% today as of 10:40 a.m. EDT. Curiously, today's bounce seems predicated on no actual good news and flies in the face of an awful lot of bad news.

As recently as February, Azul was still in growth mode, with consolidated passenger traffic up 25% year over year. But when the coronavirus arrived in March, Azul cut its number of planned flights by 90%.

By May, things were so bad that S&P Global Ratings downgraded the Brazilian airline's debt to CCC+ (a junk level) with a negative outlook promising more downgrades ahead. S&P warned that travel restrictions "will crimp the company's cash flows and liquidity."