Expedia stock plunges amid surprise CEO change-up
Shares of Expedia (EXPE) took a post-earnings plunge Friday after the company announced a change in leadership, despite posting stellar fourth-quarter results. Ariane Gorin, the President of Expedia for Business, will succeed Peter Kern as CEO starting on May 13th.
Yahoo Finance Reporter Madison Mills joins the Live show to give insight into the movements of the stock and how the company may operate moving forward.
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Editor's note: This article was written by Nicholas Jacobino
Video Transcript
SEANA SMITH: Let's take a look at today's stock to watch and that is Expedia under a tremendous amount of pressure after the company shocked investors with the announcement of a CEO change. Yahoo Finance's Madison Mills is on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange with the latest on that move to the downside. [? Maddie. ?]
MADISON MILLS: The declines to Expedia are not going to make sense when I run through the numbers. But I had some conversations with my sources on the Stock Exchange this morning and got a little bit of clarity about why this amazing earnings print led to such a tumble for Expedia. They hit a 52-week high yesterday, then they had their earnings print.
Just running through a couple of the amazing wins that they had here, 33% gain on EPS is what was expected. They came in at 37%, revenue up 10%, gross bookings up 6%. But an announcement of a c-suite shakeup, the previous CEO changing out for the previous president, that shakeup is what some folks are blaming on the stock taking a tumble. But my sources here telling me it's just a buy the rumor, sell the news event. When this name hit a 52-week high earlier in the day, maybe it's an opportunity for some investors to shave their holdings in Expedia, maybe taking a little bit of profits in off of that amazing earnings print.
Interesting to note also, the CFO saying to other news outlets that it was potentially related to that bookings number. Bookings increasing by 6%, that was a little bit softer than what the Street had been looking for. And the CFO blaming that on some of the Boeing experience that we've seen out there. Maybe that was weighing on travel demand.
I am hesitant to totally buy into that just because we haven't seen a lot of evidence of that in the overall macro bookings picture just yet. So we'll see what that looks like for not just Expedia, but the airlines when we get more earnings out as well. Are we seeing the Boeing picture having a read through to some of the other consumer demand on airlines in the ticket buying picture moving forward?
