Airbnb stock now ranks among the most underestimated equities of the budget-conscious segment. This week's low at $122.06 per share may end drawing a local bottom pattern, as it was only 7.7% above the dips of October 2023, also looking like a re-test of a strong technical support area of the covid era and of a major technical resistance in 2022, partially in 2023 as well. However, the company, which occupies nearly 30% in online-booking worldwide, already started its future meteoric share price rebound on August 6 by adding nearly 4% to its market value in the first two hours of the regular session on Wall Street to reach the levels around $130 per share.
Being targeted on regular travellers and families looking for unique experiences but having a tight budget, such assets are typically not affected too much by recession fears. Unlike many techs, consumer stocks rarely need international carry trade schemes to finance investment. Thus, the two weakest links of today's market environment are not essential drivers for Airbnb's share price, which is a good thing for traders seeking a kind of refuge from all recent mess and leapfrogs, better combined with potential income in troubled periods of market corrections.
Looking ahead to Q2 earnings (scheduled on late August 6, soon after the market's close), investors are buying fresh dips in Airbnb stocks, as most of them may feel that the summer season favours the further sales growth. At the same time, even if some quarterly business indicators or annual projections by Airbnb CEOs may disappoint the crowd and analyst polls amid uncertain overall market sentiment, the current share price discount (of nearly 17% against its early July peaks above $155 and almost 25% vs this spring's record highs) looks really great and promising. Buying Airbnb on expectations sounds like a smart strategy, compared to a continued wait-and-see tactics, which may with a high and growing probability simply lead to missing an opportunity.
Consensus estimates suppose that Airbnb sales may come out at $2.74 bln from April till June, vs $2.14 bln in Q1, $2.2 bln in the Christmas quarter and $2.5 bln in the same quarter of 2023, while Q2 2024 profit may rise to $0.90 per share vs $0.41 in Q1 2024, yet marking some compression from $0.98 YoY due to increased costs. Lower numbers in today's release could make the stock dive again for a while, but prices are unlikely to remain in the vicinity of multi-year dips for any considerable time.
