EXPE enters the week straddling two narratives: a stock that fell hard on May 7 earnings and has shed 19% over the past month, and a company that just staged an ambitious day of strategic announcements that could reshape how the Street reads the thesis.
The most striking development landed Tuesday. Expedia announced an agreement to acquire CarTrawler, an Irish ground transport and car rental platform, on the same day it unveiled new AI travel tools and launched the Expedia Trails Fund at its annual Explore 2026 conference. The sequence was deliberate — management is leaning into the B2B travel infrastructure angle and using AI as the umbrella narrative. Whether that repositioning lands with investors is the question hanging over the stock heading into the June 17 earnings call.
Options positioning has shifted sharply in favor of bulls in the wake of the May 7 report. The put/call ratio has collapsed to 0.88 — nearly two standard deviations below its 20-day average of 1.12, and the lowest reading of the past year. That is a dramatic reversal: for most of the prior month, the PCR was running above 1.2, reflecting heavy demand for downside protection. The sudden unwinding of that hedging overhang suggests traders moved quickly to cover protective puts after the earnings-driven selloff was absorbed. The lending market reinforces the loose-borrow story. Availability runs at roughly 11 times short interest — deep in normal territory — and cost to borrow barely registers at 0.47%, near its lowest level of the past six weeks. There is no squeeze pressure here.
Short interest tells a more cautious story on the underlying positioning. Short interest has climbed 6% over the past week to 6.1% of free float — still a moderate level, but the direction of travel is worth noting. The ORTEX short score has ticked up steadily from 41.2 to 43.4 over the past two weeks, sitting in the mid-range but moving in the wrong direction for longs. Shorts appear to be rebuilding positions taken off around earnings rather than launching a fresh campaign; the absolute level is not elevated, but the drift higher since the May 7 miss adds a layer of uncertainty to the recovery thesis.
The Street remains broadly cautious on valuation, even if outright bears are scarce. The mean price target sits around $286, implying over 33% upside from the current $215 close — but that gap reflects post-earnings target resets rather than conviction. The dominant tone in recent analyst actions has been sideways adjustment: DA Davidson trimmed to $250 (Neutral), UBS cut slightly to $262 (Neutral), and Piper Sandler and Barclays both nudged targets modestly higher while holding neutral ratings. BTIG is the lone consistent bull at a $330 target. The PE multiple has compressed materially over the past 30 days, falling more than three points to 10.2x, while EV/EBITDA has drifted down to 6.7x — both multiples moving in the direction of value rather than growth. The RSI at 34 sits in oversold territory and the stock is off 24% year-to-date, but the analyst community's neutral clustering signals the Street wants to see execution before re-rating higher.
The May 7 print itself set the tone for what follows. The stock fell 6.8% on the day and gave up a further 5.2% over the subsequent five days — the sharpest single-print reaction in the data. That earnings response puts pressure on the June 17 date; the B2B pivot and CarTrawler deal will need to show up in forward bookings guidance to move the conversation away from the recent miss. The degree to which the options market continues to unwind its defensive positioning — or snaps back toward hedging — in the weeks ahead will be the clearest read on how much conviction is returning to the recovery trade.
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