Priceline.com (PCLN) Delivers Yet Again

Priceline.com (PCLN) continues to astound me with it's performance. Since the August lows, it has doubled... after having a stellar 2009 and early 2010. I was a mega bull on this name a long while back but in this case I certainly left the train far too early and left a ton on the table, as the stock has gone so much farther than I anticipated. Despite being a momentum stock with heightened expectations for much of the past year and a half, each of the last 3 quarters the stock has gapped up on earnings which is a rare thing to do, three times in a row.

Analysts were in fro $3.09 but the company was able to beat that by 31 cents. They also guided up for the next year.

Via IBD:

Priceline late Wednesday reported Q4 profit that shattered analyst views, but sales just missed as airline ticket revenue slipped. Still, the name-your-price online travel site guided profit and sales above analyst views for the current quarter.
The Norwalk, Conn.-based company said it earned $3.40 a share minus special items last quarter, up 71% from the year-ago quarter. That beat by 31 cents the estimate of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters. In Q3, Priceline beat by 36 cents.
Sales surged 35% to $731 million, but still missed analyst expectations for $734.9 million.
Gross bookings, the value of all travel services bought by customers, jumped 44.2% to $3.26 billion in Q4, led by a 64.9% surge in international gross travel bookings. Domestic bookings rose 8.5%.
Hotel room nights booked surged 50.6% worldwide, but airline ticket bookings fell 2.3%.
Gross margin came in at 65.4%, up from 57.8% a year earlier.
"This company continues to execute," said Standard & Poor's equity analyst Scott Kessler. "Priceline has demonstrated time and again that they are the best operator in (online travel)."
"Their growth strategy in Europe is working for them better than anyone else in the industry," said Morningstar analyst Warren Miller.

Guidance:

For the current quarter, the company sees revenue in a range of $753 million to $782 million, and EPS in a range of $2.34 to $2.44. Analysts have been modeling $742 million in revenue and EPS of $2.30.
Boyd said he expects "some deceleration" in Priceline's international growth "due to the sheer size of the (online) travel business" and hard-to-beat comparisons as the world economy recovers.
Analysts say Priceline's risks in 2011 include whatever impact Middle East tensions will have on travel and fuel costs.