Expedia Group reports Q2 results on June 17 against a backdrop of rising short interest, cautious options hedging, and a Street that remains divided on whether the stock's recent recovery is justified.
Short sellers have been quietly adding pressure into the print. Short interest has climbed roughly 10% over the past month to 6.5% of the free float — meaningful territory for a large-cap travel name — with the build concentrated in the last few weeks of May and continuing through early June. The borrow market, however, tells a different story. Availability is running at 841%, meaning shares to lend are plentiful at more than eight times current short interest, and borrowing costs are negligible at just 0.5%. This is not a crowded, expensive short — it's a measured, low-friction bet against the stock. Options traders are leaning the same direction: the put/call ratio hit 1.09 on Monday, running above its 20-day average of 1.00 by nearly 1.5 standard deviations. That's not extreme alarm, but it's a consistent tilt toward protection heading into earnings.
The analyst community is split, and the split runs along familiar fault lines. Bulls anchor their case on Expedia's AI partnerships, improving free cash flow, and what they see as a discounted valuation relative to peers — BTIG holds a $330 target and reiterated its Buy just last week. The sceptics, who represent the majority of recent actions, see the stock differently: DA Davidson trimmed to $250 after the last print, UBS and Barclays both made modest cuts, and the bear case centres on concentrated exposure to lodging (roughly 80% of bookings), rising competition from direct hotel channels, and macro sensitivity that a resilient travel market may be masking. The mean analyst target of around $286 sits about 21% above the current price of $236.98, which implies upside on paper — but the direction of travel on those targets since May has been more cuts than raises. The EV/EBITDA multiple of 6.9x and a PE of 10.6x are undemanding, consistent with the bull case that valuation is the support here.
The stock has recovered 9% in the past month and jumped 5% on Monday alone, outperforming close peers: BKNG was flat on the week, ABNB slightly lower, while DASH shed 4%. That divergence matters, because the last earnings print — May 7 — sent the stock down nearly 7% in a single session and almost 12% over the following five days. Expedia has recaptured a large portion of those losses into this second print, resetting the bar considerably higher than where it sat going into Q1 results.
Tomorrow's print is therefore a test of whether the recent recovery reflects genuine fundamental improvement in booking trends and margin trajectory, or whether it has run ahead of what the numbers can actually deliver.
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