Jefferies Reports QTD Trends Show Improving Hotels, Flat Air Travel On Expedia

In a report published by Jefferies, Expedia's EXPE QTD trends show improving hotels and flat air travel.

Jefferies said that overall, the trends for Jan/Feb show that travel demand continued to pick up, with the hotel segment seeing improving fundamentals (ADRs, occupancy) across all geographies while air transactions were flat Y/Y. “Despite the headwinds out of Japan/Middle East, we remain positive on EXPE, given the attractive risk/reward. We continue to be positive on EXPE (Buy), given: a) its relatively cheap valuation at ~6x FY11 EBITDA and ~10x FCF, b) 10%+ top-line growth, and c) muted Street expectations for profit growth and traction of growth initiatives.”

Expedia closed yesterday at $21.49.