Online Travel Investment - Expedia

Recent AAA (American Automobile Association) report projects a 3% increase of Christmas and New Year holiday travel for Californians this year compared to last year.  Even nation wide AAA is expecting 92.3 million people will travel 50 miles or more during the holiday, also a 3% increase compared to 2009.  And as more and more people are using online travel site to book their travel itineraries, it is probaby worth while to look at the public traded online travel companies. 

Expedia.com (Nasdaq:EXPE) is a major player in the online travel industry with close to $3 billion of annual revenue for both 2008 and 2009, both of which were better than previous years.  With revenue for the first 3 quarters totalled $2.5 billion, 2010's number should easily surpass any of the ones of the previous years including 2008 and 2009.  And it is interesting to note that although the whole economy sufferred the financial storm during 2008, the revneue for Expedia.com actually rose more than 10% compared to 2007 which shows a fundamental shift in ways people buys airline tickets, book hotels or rent cars.  

Shares of Expedia are traded at $25.57 with P/E ration of 16.41 and market cap of $7.28 billion.  The interenet company also provides dividend with annual yield of 1.09%, a rare given since most online companies do not provide dividend.  The technical chart shows weakness as the stock is traded below 50 day moving average but long term signal is still positive as stock is still above 200 day moving average.  Do expect support around $24 as the stock touched the 200 day moving average.