Priceline Switches to Booking Holdings and Reports Strong Earnings
Priceline officially changed its name to "Booking Holdings" on Tuesday as it reported Q4 results. Overall, Booking Holdings reported a strong Q4. CEO Glenn Fogel joins Cheddar to break down the name change and earnings news.
Q4 revenue came in at $2.8 billion, ahead of estimates, and 19% higher than last year. After earnings were reported, shares rose about 6%.
Fogel says that travel is what drives the business and that is still strong. When asked about compeition, Fogel is confident in Booking Holdings position in the market. Fogel says the great thing about booking.com, is that it is instantly confirmable. Fogel also touts that there is no booking travel fee with their businesses.
Following Ford's earnings miss, the stock price dropped despite a bullish outlook from the auto giant. Karl Brauer, an executive analyst with ISeeCars.com, joined Cheddar to break down why investors may not be sold on the carmaker because of the ongoing factor of supply constraints. "The product is not an issue. There's really good product coming from them, including the electric vehicle side, and the demand is not an issue. There's plenty of demand, but nobody really has a solid grasp on when we're going to get past the supply chain issue," said Brauer.
Image-sharing app Pinterest reported big beats on its Q4 earnings for the top and bottom lines. The social platform surprised investors after seeing a decline in users while earnings and revenue were much higher than expected.
The Labor Department's January jobs report showed 467,000 jobs were added, compared to the 150,000 that were projected, a sign that employment is continuign to return to pre-pandemic levels. Lindsey Piegza, chief economist at investment bank Stifel, joined Cheddar to break down the report, noting the big gains but adding a note of caution. "Remember, even with this morning's stellar report, we're still millions below that level that we had reached prior to the onset of COVID-19," she said." Yes, we are recapturing jobs. We still have further ground that needs to be made before we can talk about reaching that previous peak." Piegza also discussed the role of the Federal Reserve going forward as the employment figures turn more positive.
