Airbnb and TripAdvisor Soar on Lower Wall Street

15th February 2023
Business, News, US

The tourism companies Airbnb and TripAdvisor rose sharply on the stock exchanges in New York on Wednesday. Both companies came with better-than-expected quarterly results and outlooks.

Home rental platform Airbnb has seen little cooling in the travel market so far and believes that travel demand will remain strong for the foreseeable future, despite high inflation. In Europe, Airbnb notices that people book their overnight stays for the summer earlier. As a result, the stock rose more than 12 percent.

TripAdvisor also performed better than experts expected last quarter. The travel advice website benefited, among other things, from strong growth at the Viator division because travellers booked more tours and other activities in addition to hotel stays. As a result, the stock rose more than 3 percent.

Investors also processed US retail sales, which rose more than expected in January. On Tuesday, it was already announced that inflation in the world’s largest economy cooled less than hoped in January. This could mean that the US central bank will raise interest rates further to curb price increases.

Shortly after the start of trading, the Dow Jones index was 0.4 percent lower at 33,950 points. The broad S&P 500 also lost 0.4 percent to 4120 points, and the tech exchange Nasdaq lost 0.1 percent to 11,944 points.

Tesla lost almost 1 percent after a solid price gain the day before. The electric car manufacturer is opening up part of its charging station network in the United States to other car brands. Elon Musk also announced that he wanted to find a successor to take over from him at Twitter by the end of this year. Tesla shareholders previously complained that Musk, also CEO of Tesla, spends too much time on the social media company. Musk also sold billions in Tesla stock to finance the acquisition of Twitter.

Ford also lost more than 2 percent. The automaker has suspended production and delivery of its F-150 Lightning electric pickup over a potential issue with the vehicle’s batteries. Food producer Kraft Heinz in turn, gained almost 1 percent. The maker of, among other things, the ketchup brand Heinz and the cream cheeses of Philadelphia booked more turnover last quarter than analysts had expected.