Booking Holdings Inc. (BKNG): A Bull Case Theory

We came crossed a bullish thesis connected Booking Holdings Inc. connected Nikhs’s Substack. In this article, we volition summarize the bulls’ thesis connected BKNG. Booking Holdings Inc.'s stock was trading astatine $4,914.69 arsenic of November 28th. BKNG’s trailing and guardant P/E were 31.99 and 18.76 respectively according to Yahoo Finance.

Booking Holdings Inc., unneurotic with its subsidiaries, provides online and accepted question and edifice reservations and related services successful the United States and internationally. BKNG is undergoing a structural translation the marketplace inactive values arsenic cyclical travel, adjacent arsenic its concern exemplary has softly shifted into a high-margin payments platform.

With 72% of transactions present processed done its merchant-of-record model—up sharply from 50% 2 years ago—Booking progressively controls the full outgo flow, gaining interval income, working-capital leverage, and scalability much emblematic of fintech than online travel. This displacement is already reshaping profitability, with facilitating payments generating incremental gross faster than incremental costs and EBITDA margins reaching 47%.

The merchant exemplary besides strengthens Connected Trip bundling and Genius loyalty, enhancing lawsuit retention, beingness value, and supplier participation. Meanwhile, the $457 cardinal KAYAK impairment reflects not weakness but strategical clarity: AI is commoditizing meta-search, but Booking’s worth lies successful orchestrating and settling multi-vertical question transactions—something AI agents cannot bash without Booking’s planetary payments infrastructure.

Connected Trip penetration is rising successful the debased treble digits with mid-20s% growth, driving higher-frequency, higher-LTV customers whose behavior compounds the merchant model’s economics. Genius further accelerates this flywheel by improving conversion and retention portion attracting spot information astatine scale.

Although Q4 guidance appears cautious, it apt reflects pugnacious comps and blimpish absorption alternatively than request deterioration, particularly arsenic cost-saving targets and EBITDA guidance were raised. The strategical trajectory is clear: Booking is positioning itself arsenic the transaction and colony furniture for planetary travel, an infrastructure vantage reinforced by web effects, information scale, and regulatory complexity. If merchant premix surpasses 75% and Connected Trip adoption continues accelerating, the marketplace volition beryllium forced to re-rate Booking not arsenic a question company, but arsenic a planetary payments level embedded successful the question ecosystem.

Previously we covered a bullish thesis connected Booking Holdings Inc. by Jimmy Investor successful April 2025, which highlighted the question rebound, maturation of OTAs, and Booking’s planetary level strength. The company’s banal terms has appreciated astir by 7.46% since our coverage. This is due to the fact that the thesis played out. The thesis inactive stands arsenic fundamentals stay strong. Nikhs shares a akin presumption but emphasizes Booking’s displacement toward a payments-driven operating model.