BKNG Stock Plunges 21% in 6 Months: Should You Buy, Sell or Hold?

Booking Holdings BKNG shares have declined 20.6% over the past six months, underperforming the broader Zacks Retail-Wholesale sector, which has slipped 2.1%, and the Zacks Internet-Commerce sub-industry, which has declined 8.1%. The decline largely reflects industrywide pressures, including tariff-related uncertainty, fluctuating foreign exchange rates and cautious discretionary spending, factors that typically influence global travel demand and booking volumes across online travel platforms.

BKNG shares have delivered a mixed performance relative to peers, including Expedia Group EXPE, Tripadvisor TRIP and MakeMyTrip MMYT, over the past six months. Expedia Group, Tripadvisor and MakeMyTrip shares have declined 19.3%, 36.2% and 46.1%, respectively.

BKNG Stock’s Performance

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BKNG Shares Are Trading at a Premium

BKNG shares trade at a premium compared with both the broader sector and the Internet-Commerce sub-industry. BKNG trades at a forward 12-month price-to-sales multiple of 4.45X, significantly higher than the sector’s 1.55X and the sub-industry’s 1.86X.

The premium becomes difficult to justify when compared with peers such as Tripadvisor, Expedia Group and MakeMyTrip, which trade at P/S multiples of 0.54X, 1.75X and 4.03X, respectively. The elevated multiple appears stretched as rising marketing investments are yet to demonstrate full monetization, while tariff-related trade tensions and cautious discretionary spending could further pressure global travel demand in the near term.

Price/Sales Ratio (F12M)

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BKNG’s 2026 Earnings Estimates Revisions Are Declining

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for BKNG’s first-quarter 2026 EPS is pegged at $29.5, down by 5.24% over the past 30 days and indicating year-over-year growth of 18.9%. The consensus mark for revenues is pegged at $5.5 billion, implying a year-over-year rally of 15.45%.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for BKNG’s 2026 EPS is pegged at $266.13, down by 8 cents over the past 30 days and indicating year-over-year growth of 16.69%. The consensus mark for BKNG’s 2026 revenues is pegged at $30.01 billion, implying a year-over-year rally of 11.49%.

Booking Holdings Inc. Price and Consensus

Booking Holdings Inc. price-consensus-chart | Booking Holdings Inc. Quote

BKNG Benefits From Its Global Ecosystem

BKNG's multi-brand platform spanning Booking.com, Priceline, Agoda, KAYAK and OpenTable operates across more than 220 countries and territories, giving the company a degree of geographic diversification and revenue stability that few online travel platforms can replicate. This broad reach reduces exposure to any single market's travel cycle while also carrying a meaningful margin dimension.

Direct channel bookings accounted for a mid-60% mix of total bookings in 2025, reducing reliance on paid acquisition and improving marketing efficiency. The Genius loyalty program reinforces this ecosystem advantage, with higher-tier members increasingly driving a disproportionate share of room nights while booking more verticals per trip.

In the fourth quarter of 2025, gross bookings rose over 16% year over year, and room nights increased 9%, reflecting the compounding effect of direct channel momentum and deepening loyalty engagement. As the Connected Trip model matures, cross-selling flights, alternative accommodations, and attractions into a single itinerary raises revenue per customer without proportional cost increases, supporting margin expansion even in softer demand environments. The depth of these partner and traveller relationships continues to reinforce BKNG's competitive position in the global online travel market.

BKNG Bets Big on GenAI

BKNG has been deploying artificial intelligence across its platforms for more than a decade, with Generative AI accelerating these investments. AI-driven tools across Booking.com, Agoda and KAYAK are improving how travelers search, plan and book trips through natural language interfaces and smart recommendations, driving higher engagement and better conversion rates. Automated communication tools are reducing operational friction for independent properties, which represent the vast majority of BKNG's supply base. Strategic collaborations with OpenAI, Google, Amazon and Microsoft further position BKNG at the forefront of how AI is reshaping the travel discovery funnel.

These AI advancements have led to cost savings, with customer service costs declining in 2025 even as gross bookings grew 10%, reflecting operating leverage from AI-driven efficiency gains. As general-purpose AI models create new top-of-funnel entry points for travel, BKNG's early positioning across these platforms reduces the risk of disintermediation and supports long-term revenue scalability and margin expansion potential.

Conclusion

BKNG faces a stretched valuation relative to the broader sector, sub-industry and peers, while tariff-related uncertainty, foreign exchange volatility and cautious discretionary spending could weigh on near-term travel demand. Downward revisions to 2026 earnings estimates add a further note of caution. However, BKNG's diversified global ecosystem, growing direct booking mix and expanding GenAI investments support a constructive long-term outlook for the business.

BKNG currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), which implies that investors already holding the stock may maintain their positions, while new investors may prefer to wait for a more attractive entry point before accumulating the stock. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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Expedia Group, Inc. (EXPE): Free Stock Analysis Report

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Booking Holdings Inc. (BKNG): Free Stock Analysis Report

This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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