Piper Jaffray Comments On Priceline.com Ahead Of Earnings

Based on Piper Jaffray's analysis of industry & web traffic data and currency fluctuations, it sees potential for slight upside to Priceline's PCLN Q4 consensus estimates. Priceline typically guides conservatively and we expect the Q1 outlook will be essentially in-line with the Street. With the currency changes and Europe snowstorm, the company faced some headwinds in Q4 and, for these reasons Piper believes, Street expectations are for relatively less upside vs. the previous quarter. Priceline provided Q4 guidance on 11/8, which was based on a $/Euro rate of $1.40 and $/Pound rate of $1.62 from Nov. 8 until quarter end. For the full Q4, the $/Euro exchange rate averaged $1.36 and the $/Pound exchange rate averaged $1.58, resulting in a negative impact of ~2-3% on international bookings relative to guidance given 11/8. Given QTD and spot Euro & Pound exchange rates, we expect these key currencies to have ~1% impact on int'l bookings in Q1. Piper has a $471 PT and Overweight rating on PCLN PCLN is trading higher at $433.65