New York, February 13, 2026, 14:39 EST — Regular session
- Expedia shares dropped in the afternoon, with investors parsing a robust bookings outlook but focusing on the company’s 2026 profit-margin targets.
- The online travel group is now projecting a stronger margin boost in the first quarter, though it expects gains for the full year to come more gradually.
- Traders are eyeing business travel demand and discount-driven bookings to see if growth holds up—without putting a squeeze on margins.
Expedia Group, Inc. slid nearly 5% to $215.89 Friday, underperforming a slightly positive U.S. market. Shares of Booking Holdings held steady. Airbnb edged higher. TripAdvisor dropped.
Expedia shares slipped after the company’s latest results, which emphasized short-term margin gains but flagged caution for the remainder of 2026. Management cited “ongoing macro uncertainty” and choppy consumer spending as reasons for staying “appropriately cautious.” CFO Scott Schenkel described the outlook for the rest of the year as “relatively muted.” CEO Ariane Gorin, speaking to Reuters, highlighted a surge in Black Friday partner participation—up 70% to a new high—and noted that around 30% of Q4 bookings included inventory with deals. Reuters
The market’s been favoring travel stocks with clear operating leverage—growth that isn’t tied to ramped-up marketing budgets—and has come down hard on any outlook suggesting squeezed margins. For Expedia, investors are likely to weigh its cocktail of promotions, business-to-business momentum, and tighter cost discipline when sizing up prospects for 2026.
Expedia reported a fourth-quarter revenue jump of 11% to $3.547 billion, with adjusted earnings at $3.78 per share. Gross bookings also increased 11%, reaching $27.003 billion. Looking ahead to 2026, the company is targeting gross bookings between $127 billion and $129 billion and expects revenue in the $15.6 billion to $16.0 billion range. Adjusted EBITDA margin, according to Expedia, should widen by 1 to 1.25 percentage points for the year.
Gross bookings tally up the full value of travel reserved via Expedia’s platforms. Adjusted EBITDA, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, serves as a standard measure of operating profits. A percentage point, for the record, marks the gap between two percentage figures—a one-point change isn’t equal to a 1% increase.
Expedia’s annual 10-K hit the SEC website Friday. Inside: a declared $0.48 quarterly dividend, set for payment March 26 to shareholders on record by March 5. The company also reported $1.6 billion left for buybacks under its 2023 repurchase plan as of December 31.
Still, the way forward looks anything but straightforward. Cantor analyst Deepak Mathivanan lowered his price target on Expedia to $245 from $285, citing ongoing “debates on AI risks to online travel agents” that aren’t going away, Barron’s reported. Barron’s
March 5 serves as the record date for the upcoming dividend, set to pay out on March 26. Investors are watching for new signs that first-quarter demand, particularly on the business travel side, can stay strong enough to protect margins.
