Americans still have money to travel, so ignore all those wacky reports that the consumer is about to go missing.
Granted, I wouldn’t say people are flush with cash, but enough to go on holiday and pay for short-term rentals from the likes of good ‘ol company Airbnb (ABNB).
The big takeaway from Airbnb’s earnings report is that the tech rally will continue albeit it in a choppier form than we are generally used to.
But it will keep chugging along, translating into traders and investors buying the big dips when tech stocks go on discount.
That dip buying is what prevents stocks from real weakness, which is something more like a 10% or 20% drop.
Have you noticed that tech stocks hardly go down anymore?
Well, there is money waiting like a parachute to a paratrooper, and this dynamic will underpin the market even though I admit that tech stocks are expensive and losing steam in their internal business models.
Cross-border travel drove a majority of nights booked in the APAC region.
Its North American business, where there were signs of slowing demand last summer, also saw faster growth with a “mid-single digits” gain in nights booked during the holiday season. That’s “driven by broad strength of underlying travel trends within the region,” the company said, while also citing higher pricing of stays and strength in short-term bookings and entire homes.
Booking’s growing 8.5% is nothing to throw a parade over, but the market delivered the stock a 14% return at the time of this writing.
I remember for that type of sumptuous pop, we used to need 30% or more in revenue expansion, and tech just isn’t delivering on that, and it is a sign of the times of Silicon Valley running out of great ideas.
We are still living on Steve Jobs’ ideas for better or worse.
Zuckerberg is still doing the Facebook and Instagram thing, and CEO of Airbnb Brian Cheksy is still doing the short-term rental thing.
His other ideas aren’t stupid, but they won’t move the needle.
Chesky is doubling down on “other products.”
Airbnb will invest $200 million to $250 million into launching and scaling those new products starting in May. His plans are to build on the experiences business for tours, classes, and workshops, and offering add-on amenities during stays such as personal chefs, midweek cleaning, and in-home massages.
Airbnb’s co-host marketplace, which allows homeowners to hire fellow hosts to manage their rentals, is really a nothing-burger.
Getting someone more ruthless to squeeze out higher profits from a rental is not some revolutionary idea, nor will it attract new shareholders.
It is basically hiring a property manager for a short-term rental. It also scales very poorly and is not an efficient use of time.
I am also not sold on the “experiences” business and find it overreaching.
Just the other day, I opened Airbnb’s homepage only to be forced and overruled into an “experience” page of the location I was hoping to search for even though I still hadn’t found a rental unit.
I had to click out of it, wasting my precious time.
Luckily, after I reloaded the page, Airbnb didn’t force-opt me again into their marginal experience page, and I was able to search for my rental.
After all these years, call me arrogant, but I think I know enough to plan my trip and don’t need tech companies to hold my hand or put digital sensors up my butt.
In fact, I will call Airbnb out, their service has been getting incrementally crappier the last few years, but they have a monopoly so they get away with it. Life is unfair, isn’t it?
Tech companies risk alienating many customers, but Airbnb is still a great buy-the-dip company and gives us brilliant insight into the health of the North American consumers.
Buy the dip in tech and ABNB until you shouldn’t.
