Booking Stock Jumps As Travel Demand Powers Strong Q1

Booking Holdings (BKNG) on Thursday reported a 76% increase in earnings to easily beat analyst expectations. Booking stock jumped in after-hours trading while rival Expedia (EXPE) fell on more mixed quarterly results.

In a news release Thursday, the online travel company said that it earned an adjusted 20.39 per share on sales of $4.4 billion for the March-ending quarter. On average, analysts projected the Norwalk, Conn.-based company would post adjusted earnings of $13.98 per share on sales of $4.25 billion, according to FactSet.

For the same period a year earlier, Booking Holdings posted adjusted earnings of $11.60 per share on sales of $3.78 billion.

On the stock market today, Booking stock is up more than 1% at 3,525 in recent after-hours action.

Booking.com: ‘Higher Frequency’ Users

Meanwhile, the company said that gross travel bookings increased 10% to $43.5 billion. That came in ahead of expectations of $42.15 billion, according to FactSet.

Room nights booked increased 9% year-over-year to 297 million.

The Booking Holdings group includes online travel brands Booking.com, Priceline, Agoda, Kayak and OpenTable.

Chief Executive Glenn Fogel said Booking.com in particular is seeing momentum from “increasing direct mix, higher frequency, and more of our travelers moving into the upper Genius loyalty tiers.”

Expedia Stock: Down After Earnings

But it wasn’t all good news for travel stocks. Shares of Booking Holdings’ smaller rival Expedia Group fell 7% in late trading Thursday after its first quarter report.

The firm’s adjusted earnings of 21 cents per share and sales of $2.89 billion exceeded analyst expectations. But its gross bookings of $30.2 billion, up 3% year over year, came in lower than the $30.45 billion analysts were looking for.

Chief Executive Peter Kern said the company’s Vrbo platform, a competitor to Airbnb (ABNB), provided a drag on gross bookings. Vrbo has recovered “slower than anticipated” from a recent effort to transition it onto a common tech platform with Expedia Group’s other offerings, he said. The firm also lowered its expectations for the rest of the year.

“Given the Vrbo drag and the rate of acceleration in B2C (business-to-consumer) thus far, we are lowering our full year guidance to a range of mid to high single digit top line growth with margins relatively in line versus last year,” Kern said in a press release.

Booking Stock: Technical Ratings

Prior to earnings, Booking stock gained 1.6% in Thursday trading. Shares are down about 2% this year compared to a 6% gain for the S&P 500. But Booking stock is up 29.4% over the past 12 months, outpacing a 21.5% gain from the S&P 500 in that same period.

Coming into the report, Booking stock had an IBD Composite Rating of 84 out of a best-possible 99, according to IBD Stock Checkup. The score combines five separate proprietary ratings into one rating. The best growth stocks have a Composite Rating of 90 or better.

Further, Booking’s IBD Relative Strength Rating was 77 out of 99.

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