EXPEDIA INC COM STK USD0.001 (NASDAQ:EXPE)

demographic trends and stronger dollar support more travel.

my score may suffer in the near term, but over five years, this bullsh*t company will go much lower

Power house in the travel industry that will take market share from Priceline. I've never used Priceline, have you?

I like this one better than Priceline, I think it gets alot of corporate business and personal business.

break out per IBD

Overvalued. Lot's of competition. Due for correction.

high relative strenght

A thousand percent in under a year, please.

In a given technology area, there will often only be 1 or 2 long-term winners. This is because cost of entry is typically expensive, switching cost is often high, and scale drives opportunity to enhance value propositions.

Expedia is the #1 online provider of travel-related services: leading in traffic, supply, scale, bookings, revenue, and cash flows.

As a result, Expedia's business model is a virtuous growth cycle at the center pf a macro shift in moving the travel industry online.

Cash Flow to Invest --> Compelling Channels --> Better Supplier Economics --> Improved Traveler Experience --> More Travelers --> User-generated Content --> More Ad Revenue --> Cash Flow to Invest

Saturday breakout screen

As economy recovers consumers turn to Expedia for travel efficiency, news of the key partnership with Groupon and others like Airtran gives Expedia leg up on competition.

On 4/7/11, EXPE announced that its Board of Directors preliminarily approved a plan to separate TripAdvisor in a tax-free spin-off. Management has given little information on the timing and the structure of the spin, but on its Q1 2011E earnings call, EXPE indicated that, if the transaction is approved by shareholders, it expects the transaction to occur in “the fall of 2011”. EXPE plans on submitting a proxy statement with further details on the spin in Q2 2011.

I like a lot of the things mentioned below. In addition, I think the new management incentives could really drive value here (TripAdvisor will now be led by their Co-Founder... who should have the ability to properly incentive mgt).

From the Q1 conference call... when asked the reasons for the spin:

I think as we've kind of restructured our businesses and created global lines of business and global
brands, we've found that focus is incredibly important in performance. And we think that this will focus the employees of
kind of new Expedia, the transactional employees to drive those businesses and make sure that the investments that
we're making on behalf of our shareholders pay off. And I think that it will focus TripAdvisor to keep building on an
incredible asset that, that management team has built. I think anytime that you've got employees who feel like their work
has a great chance of affecting, not only how their company does, what products they release, but also how their stock
price does and how their pocket books are affected. The more direct that action or reaction is, in the better company's
do. And I think this is going to focus the mind for the transactional businesses that we have to make these investments
pay off. And I certainly think that the TripAdvisor team, who I think is really proud of the business that they've built, is
going to get to go forward as a public company, and I think it's going to motivate them even more than they've been
motivated in the past. So I think net-net, it's going to be a great thing. There are certainly some synergies that we'll lose.
One synergy that we loved about having TripAdvisor in the family was that we were hedged against media inflation. As
you know, marketing is a very significant cost for Expedia, and having TripAdvisor in the family really provided a
wonderful hedge against that. Now our shareholders can create that hedge, and I guess they're in the business of
allocating capital. So they can make up their mind there and we're giving them optionality. And I do think that the
businesses have been working together more. You see TripAdvisor for example, now showing up in Expedia info sites,
as far as you see TripAdvisor reviews show up there. I think you'll actually see the businesses work more together going
forward, and we're going to make sure that we put those relations in place in the form of contracts, et cetera, that will
make that kind of partnership possible. The last thing I'll say is, we've worked together as a team really well. My senior
leadership team with Steve Kaufer's senior and leadership team, we're friends, we respect each other. And I do expect
that we will be a great partner of theirs, and they'll be a great partner of ours.

This document summarizes the excellent SZ write-up by Michael Song, which advocates building a long position in EXPE pre-spinoff

The writeup: https://s3.amazonaws.com/sumzero/company_models/1040/2011.05.2_Michael_Song_-_EXPE_-_Projections_and_SOTP_Analyses_v04.pdf

The majority of sell-side analysts covering EXPE have not attempted to conduct a preliminary SOTP (which increases the probability it is mispriced)
a. Even the ones that have seemed to be using an unfairly low multiple for the Legacy EXPE business that does not reflect its competitive position
i. Sell-side analysts are using multiple in-line with those of Orbitz, which is meaningfully less competitive and far more exposed to the troubling airline business
1. He shows the comparables between Priceline, Orbitz, and a few other players which supports his point that Legacy should trade at a discount to Priceline, but a distinct premium to Orbitz
4) He then attempted to value TripAdvisor
a. Took the small/mid cap online comparables and looked at 2010-2012E Revenue CAGR (Y Axis) and 2012E EBITDA margin.
b. Used a scatter plot graph to show each company with the ticker, and the 2012E EBITDA Multiple, and 2012E PE Multiple
c. Concluded that TA should trade between 11-14X 2012E EBITDA and well above 25X 2012 PE multiple
5) Took both a downside and a base case for the SOTP analysis and clearly illustrated the assumptions for each scenario

I have gone through his analysis multiple times and tend to agree with most of his thinking. I think this could create tremendous value.

I don't follow this company financially, but if they keep trying to strong-arm small town America, it could eventually tarnish reputation

http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/article/Duluth-sues-online-travel-company-for-sales-taxes-1388485.php

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124519701062921181.html

Total value will benefit from Trip advisor Spin-off

Experience in the travel business will pay off with this stock.

consumer services good deal

Owners of Expedia and Hotels.com... with the economy picking up, people will travel more. They have a nice business model with minimal overhead.

thankfully gs downgraded it, so that I noticed it and am going long...tipsters...
when looking for travel rates I type in expedia just like I type google to make a search

best 2009