Paradis
AI & Technology Investment Research
Navan's post-Q2 selloff looked unwarranted against its growing corporate travel business. Gross booking value rose 45% to over $3 billion on new customers and expansion, while US business travel demand has surged. Rising operating costs and losses disappointed investors, but enterprises may increasingly seek AI-native travel tools that save time and money. x.comÂ
Navan's AI-powered travel and expense platform is replacing legacy tools with an automated workflow, giving it large enterprise spend and a sticky product. Revenue is scaling from $700M to $1.3B in three years. The stock is also technically strong, above its IPO VWAP and nearing an IPO base breakout. x.comÂ
Booking Holdings looks ridiculously cheap against its own history, and its business and moat inspire much more confidence than Uber's even with AI risk. Its P/FCF is 11.94, versus a ten-year median of 18.85. x.comÂ
Airbnb is heading toward becoming an AI-native travel platform with inventory nobody else has. Q2 gross booking value rose 16% year over year, with $27.2 billion of bookings, as experiences and services attach to the core and hotels gain traction. As shoppers move to AI-native search, Airbnb's largely non-commodity inventory positions it well, and adding commoditized hotels and car rentals lets it connect trips end to end. x.com x.comÂ
Booking Holdings' growth slowdown will accelerate as tech layoffs hit travel demand. Travel is already expensive and most spending comes from top earners, whom tech layoffs could affect. @Stock_Opine argues the Q2 guidance of 2-4% constant-currency growth mainly reflects March cancellations and that the underlying fundamentals are accelerating. x.com x.comÂ
AI price-comparison risk to Booking Holdings is a big nothing burger, since Google and Google Maps have offered comparisons for ages. Personal checks find Google showing no better price than Booking about two-thirds of the time, and saving a few euros is not worth another spam account or the lost time. Having all bookings in one app is also far more convenient than digging through a messy Gmail inbox. x.com x.comÂ
Booking Holdings is a great business at a nice discount and one of the best ways to play an end to the war and the reopening of the Middle East, as @vijaythirumalai argues. It is a best-in-class asset-light travel business trading at about 16x earnings with roughly 15% EPS growth and a near-10% free cash flow yield, with limited AI disruption risk, unlike Uber with autonomy. The war has created some overhang. Lower prices would be even better for the long term. x.comÂ
