Expedia, Inc. (EXPE)

Zacks Rank 1-StrongBuy, Recommend Outperform, Industry Rank 59 / 217, Target 27.00, Avg Target of 16 analysts 29.21
Floor 22.10

finviz.com

They lost their hotels.com trademark and cannot protect that name on the Internet search engines. Consequently, they will start losing massive sales to competitors and that will start to show up on the bottom line.

Balance sheet shows $1.9 billion negative tangible value, current assets minus current liabilities is negative $800 million, cash flow for last year break even only because they increased liabilities. They have a small profit on paper but not nearly enough to cover the debt and the $800 million they need to come up with to cover the liabilities coming due in the next year. Add to this the declining economy and increasing competition and it looks bad for Expedia. To raise funds, they need to increase debt a lot or issue stock, both of which should drive the price down.

a good travel website

Travel service provider. It is overpriced should go to more realistic level soon.

EXPE is the 800 pound gorilla when it comes to online travel.
However, the consumer is overstreched and business travelling has fallen victim to cost saving efforts and alternatives (amongst others CISCO's video conferencing gear).
As I see it, the cake is hardly growing during the next 1 to 2 years. and the smaller wolves (PCLN, OWW, Travelocity) are still hungry and agressive (see booking and cancellation fee waving).
What can be worse than a price war and / or losing share in a shrinking market and at the same time having Barry Diller as chairman, who seriously belives that owning 9+ million shares renders the company to him as a private toy?
(Yes, I am talking about his last "self-buy-out" attempt, which if it had succeded, would have damaged the balance sheet for a pretty long time, if not to say irreparably).
I think, the run up of nearly 150% since March was driven by sentiment rather than by fundamental. And sentiment can change very fast. Alas let's shorten EXPE !

MFI following, all have negative Fool ratios but impressive 3 month gains

This pick makes no sense to me either being unemployment is the highest in 2 decades! But if going up I'm in.

This stock has always done well during January earnings season.

With deep discounts and promotions expect Expedia to be a godsend to people wanting to travel.

Tough environment to operate in, but the internet travel market is still growing. Expedia's balance sheet is strong enough to wait out better times. I prefer PCLN but EXPE is trading at lower multiples, so both should outperform S&P.

Economic hits mean people stay home, alas.

Nobody is going overseas. Price of flights are way too high and the value of the dollar is way too low.

Entirely too many competitors

Good time to jump in, looks attractive in comparison to PriceLine, similar growth rates but much lower PE. Things could slow in the travel industry, but if there is a retreat in Oil/Gas prices this year, this stock should bounce......hopefully in the right direction which is up. I see more upside than downside.

As with all my picks: A very attractive P/E, excellent EPS growth rate and high five year growth prospects.

As the economy grows with the election nearing you can expect an increase in the vacations by middle america who will look for the best place to find deals. Hence...

book value is higher than market cap.