5 Best Airline Stocks to Invest In Right Now

1. Booking Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:BKNG)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 78

Booking Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:BKNG) offers online services for travel and restaurant reservations worldwide. It runs Booking.com, Rentalcars.com, and Priceline, which lets customers book accommodations, cars, flights, cruises, and more.

As of the end of the second quarter of 2023, 78 hedge funds in Insider Monkey’s database of hedge funds had stakes in Booking Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:BKNG). Guardian Capital’s GuardCap Asset Management is the most significant shareholder of the company, with $849.67 million stake in the company.

Ivan Feinseth, an analyst at Tigress Financial, increased the price target on Booking Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:BKNG) by 12.4% on August 17, 2023, raising it from $3,430 to $3,855. The analyst also reaffirmed their ‘Strong Buy’ rating for the stock.

Here is what L1 Capital International Fund said about Booking Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:BKNG) in its first quarter 2023 investor letter:

“Booking Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:BKNG) was the largest positive contributor to the March 2023 quarterly performance. We meaningfully added to our investment in Booking in the middle of 2022 when the market was overly focused on disruptions to travel in Europe caused by airport understaffing and other COVID-19 induced inefficiencies, as well as concerns that an economic downturn would materially reduce discretionary travel. Since then, the travel environment has continued to normalise, with China being the last major market to open travel borders post COVID-19. People the world over have demonstrated their ongoing desire to travel, an industry that has historically grown significantly faster than GDP growth. Management has continued to execute a well-planned strategy to increase connections with customers booking accommodation, including offering flights, on ground transport, activities and payment options. After increasing over 20% in the December 2022 quarter, Booking’s share price increased a further 30%+ during the March 2023 quarter. Booking is now trading within our assessed view of fair value. We retain confidence that management will continue to deliver returns to shareholders and Booking remains one of the Fund’s largest holdings.”

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