Do Recent Share Price Weakness And DCF Estimates Signal An Opportunity In Booking Holdings (BKNG)?
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Curious whether Booking Holdings at around US$4,140 per share is a bargain or just an expensive travel giant? This article will walk you through what that price could mean for long term investors.
The stock has seen a 2.3% decline over the past week, a 19.1% decline over the past month, a 22.2% decline year to date and a 17.3% decline over the past year, although the 3 year and 5 year returns sit at 70.9% and 79.1% respectively.
These recent moves come as Booking Holdings remains a key player in global online travel. Investors are weighing current market sentiment against the company’s longer term track record. Broader sector commentary and ongoing discussions around travel demand have continued to influence how the market prices large online travel platforms like Booking Holdings.
On our valuation checks, Booking Holdings has a value score of 5 out of 6, which suggests the stock screens as undervalued on most of the measures we use. Next, we will walk through those methods in detail before finishing with a different way of looking at valuation that can give you an even clearer picture.
A Discounted Cash Flow, or DCF, model estimates what a business could be worth today by projecting its future cash flows and then discounting those back to the present.
For Booking Holdings, the model uses a 2 Stage Free Cash Flow to Equity approach based on cash flow projections. The latest twelve month free cash flow is about $8.23b. Analysts provide several years of forecasts, and beyond that Simply Wall St extrapolates the trend to build a longer runway of estimates.
On this basis, projected free cash flow reaches $14.87b in 2030, with a full 10 year path of estimates and extrapolations feeding into the model. When all those future cash flows are discounted back to today, the DCF model arrives at an estimated intrinsic value of about $8,358 per share.
Compared with the current share price of around $4,140, that implies an intrinsic discount of roughly 50.5%, which indicates that Booking Holdings is trading at a substantial discount to this cash flow based estimate.
For a profitable company like Booking Holdings, the P/E ratio is a useful way to think about what you are paying for each dollar of current earnings. It lets you compare the share price with both direct peers and the wider Hospitality industry using a common yardstick.
What counts as a “normal” P/E depends on how the market views growth potential and risk. Higher growth and lower perceived risk can support a higher P/E, while slower growth or higher risk usually point to a lower, more cautious multiple.
Booking Holdings currently trades on a P/E of 26.46x. That sits above the Hospitality industry average P/E of 21.36x, but below the peer group average of 33.70x. Simply Wall St also estimates a proprietary “Fair Ratio” of 38.14x for Booking Holdings. This Fair Ratio reflects factors such as the company’s earnings profile, its industry, profit margins, market value and a range of risk indicators, which makes it more tailored than a simple comparison with peers or industry averages.
Comparing the Fair Ratio of 38.14x with the current P/E of 26.46x suggests the shares trade below this custom estimate.
Earlier we mentioned that there is an even better way to understand valuation, so let us introduce Narratives. Narratives let you write a simple story about Booking Holdings, link that story to your own assumptions for future revenue, earnings and margins on Simply Wall St’s Community page, turn those assumptions into a Fair Value, then compare that Fair Value with the current price to help you decide whether the stock looks attractive or expensive. Each Narrative updates automatically when new news or earnings arrive. One investor might build a bullish Booking Holdings view around AI partnerships, expanding alternative accommodations and the Connected Trip vision that supports a Fair Value closer to the higher analyst target of about US$7,218. Another might focus on travel demand risks, region specific headwinds and AI disruption concerns that point to a Fair Value nearer the lower target of about US$5,200.
This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.
