Stephen Leeb’s “Next Priceline” — new “Top-Secret Recommendation” Travel Stock

by Travis Johnson, Stock Gumshoe | December 10, 2013 3:57 pm

Sleuthifying Leeb's pick for the Brain Trust Profits service, he thinks it's going from $40 to $200.

Stephen Leeb[1] is teasing a new pick that is, you guessed it, “top secret” for his subscribers only …

But we prefer, of course, to figure out these “hot” new ideas for free — there’s no reason not to subscribe to a newsletter here and there if you like them or learn something from them, but finding out a “secret” stock is not a good enough reason.

After all, if you pay with the understanding that you’re really just shelling out for a hot stock pick what are the odds that you’ll think about that stock critically? The Gumshoe way means you save a few bucks, you think for yourself, and then — if you like the stock and the reasoning — maybe you’ll feel like you want to go back and subscribe to that newsletter. Or maybe not. Your call.

So what’s the one that Stephen Leeb is pitching now? We haven’t heard a lot from him this year, but things at Leeb HQ must be heating up a bit because the teasers have started rolling in again in recent months — this latest one is all about some kind of internet travel company that he’s comparing to Priceline.com (a stock that still gives me hives, since I pooh-pooh’ed it as “too expensive” several hundred percent ago).

How does he pitch it? He says this is the mobile play on travel, with some big recent news including a deal with Expedia (EXPD) and other possible catalysts from a potential short squeeze and/or acquisition chatter — he says Yahoo[2] (YUHOO) might be looking to buy the company. Here’s some of the tease:

“My favorite internet travel company is positioned to book tremendous profits from this disruptive digital shift to mobile. So, what follows demands your immediate attention…

“This investment opportunity has the potential to change your financial future. And the financial future of your children. And your grandchildren. It’s that BIG!

“My top-secret recommendation dominates a hugely popular niche in the global travel industry. It operates the largest online marketplace for vacation rentals in the world.

“The company operates near 50 websites, and at the end of the third quarter, hosted a total of approximately 773,000 listings of rental properties in 171 countries.

“While travelers get a vast choice of available vacation stays to choose from, often at better rates and with better amenities, property owners earn extra income by renting out their idle properties.

“My top-secret recommendation charges the property owners and property managers a subscription fee ($349 to $999 per year) for the right to list their properties on the company’s websites and reach out to a vast Internet audience….

“I Firmly Believe My Top-Secret Recommendation Will Start Gapping Up The Charts And Hit $200 Per Share!”

So who is it? This is internet vacation rental marketplace HomeAway (AWAY — free trend analysis here[3]), which went public back in 2011, shot up to about $40 for a huge gain on the IPO[4] day, and then was weak for about a year, dipping to the $20s for a while before starting to recover in 2013 … and now, after several months of being a momentum darling and making it into the IBD 50 list of fast growers, they’re back to about $40.

And, of course, as befits an IBD 50 stock that’s growing fast, they’re looking kinda expensive. Not as expensive as AWAY will look if they reach $200 a share anytime soon, but pretty “premium priced” with a trailing PE of 140 and an estimated PE on 2014 forecasts of about 50 or 60. They’ve been beating analyst estimates every quarter, and analysts are continuing to raise their estimates, but that’s still expensive.

Not that “expensive” always means “bad,” of course — investors in almost any kind of market are willing to pay high prices for high growth as long as they’re convinced that growth will continue.

HomeAway is a company that basically operates as a real estate[5] agent for renting second homes — they do marketing and communication between renter and homeowner, and now, apparently, they’re also tying in with some of the big travel websites. That Expedia deal was announced back in October, and will probably begin gradually with inserting HomeAway listings into Expedia accommodations searches starting sometime early in 2014 — which seems like it certainly ought to boost traffic for AWAY, though I imagine Expedia will probably be pretty cautious given their very important relationships with the big hotel chains. AWAY operates a couple dozen different sites and brands, led by HomeAway.com and VRBO.com and including several other sites like BedAndBreakfast.com, and, like other real estate firms, they’re paid by the sellers — homeowners either sign up for a subscription (starting at $349 per year) to list a property, or they pay a 10% per-booking commission, and almost all owners choose the subscription so most of AWAY’s cash flow comes from those subscriptions (which have a high renewal rate of between 75-80%). They also offer added services, like managing payments.

The site and service is free for travelers/renters, other than the actual payment for renting the beach house or whatever it is, and the actual listing/matchmaking service is not that unique but the idea is that they’ve created a strong “network effect” — they have more properties listed, which attracts more renters to search for properties, which attracts more owners to list their properties, etc. That all makes perfect sense — as with other strong “network effect” companies like eBay, size scares off competition even if there’s not necessarily anything unique or un-copy-able about the business. They’re also looking to grow by starting to target the property manager business, getting more professional real estate folks to use HomeAway for their vacation rental listings.

And yes, because they’re on the edge of this “sharing revolution” they do get compared to AirBNB[6] sometimes, comparisons that will probably surface again if AirBNB decides to go public as is often rumored. While AirBNB does also offer vacation property listings, they do so kind of halfheartedly — it’s far more focused on maximizing use of urban apartments and spare bedrooms and oddball spaces, not so much about families looking for a ski house or Canadian retirees desperately seeking a month of warmth in February.

I’ve used the service but have never looked at this particular stock before — in scanning the numbers it looks like they have pretty consistent growth but the growth has been expensive and is not accelerating (revenue climbed by roughly $50 million in 2011, another $50-55 million in 2012, and probably a similar amount in 2013 — that means percentage growth year-over-year is slowing, growth is often tougher for larger companies), which makes me worry about paying this much for the stock. And they have very nice margins, but it doesn’t look like the margins are improving along with their revenue growth. That’s not necessarily a red flag but, without a lot of knowledge about their growth prospects or their strategy, it does stick out as maybe a nice orange flag. Or perhaps a light pink. It should be a highly scalable business with rising margins, but they have a surprisingly large number of employees and I’m not sure whether their lack of margin improvement is because they’re investing in growth or because they have to spend more to compete, given the rising costs of online marketing — presumably the deal with Expedia will also hurt margins even as it’s likely to improve revenues, we’ll see.

That’s about all I can tell you about AWAY — sound like your kind of pick as we watch the snowbirds head off to warmer climes? Let us know with a comment below.

Are you getting our free Daily Update
"reveal" emails? If not,
just click here...


Endnotes:
  1. Stephen Leeb: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/tag/stephen-leeb/
  2. Yahoo: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/tag/yahoo/
  3. AWAY — free trend analysis here: http://club.ino.com/trend/analysis/stock/AWAY?a_aid=CD3287&a_bid=6ae5b6f7
  4. IPO: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/tag/ipo/
  5. real estate: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/tag/real-estate/
  6. AirBNB: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/tag/airbnb/

Source URL: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/reviews/brain-trust-profits/stephen-leebs-next-priceline-new-top-secret-recommendation-travel-stock/


16 responses to “Stephen Leeb’s “Next Priceline” — new “Top-Secret Recommendation” Travel Stock”

  1. vivianlewis says:

    I’ve used the service too and I find it can be very frustrating to work with their people who essentially treat the customer as being the one who has to deal with the technology and communication. So I would argue that its stock is overpriced because I will not be a repeat customer. Note that I was using their UK office; they may be better in the USA.

  2. Joe Traudt says:

    Hilary Kramer recommended this stock a few months back with a target of $45.00

  3. Joan in Houston says:

    I purchased a very small amount not long ago — without any stimulus from this author — because, amongst other reasons — it has a substantial short interest. I hope to make a smallish percentage profit if and when I see AWAY experiencing a dramatic upsurge in price on any one day in the next few weeks.

  4. vaag says:

    Looks like a gap of about $10 a share on the up side. To fill this gap the stock would have to drop to about $30. Maybe Leeb is going short and wants a deal. My program says the P/E is about 148/1. Thanks but no thanks on this one. And trade volume is less than a million a day.

  5. Cutting says:

    Market Trend Signals is indicating a Buy signal with Short and Long Term Trends as Up as well without any risk of reversals at this time. In a Zero Sum Game who knows what can happen each and everyday though.

  6. T.L. says:

    I did a quick check on their financials and their net income has gone up and down even thought their revenues have grown, and almost half of their total assets are made up of intangibles. Makes it hard to value the company.

  7. jackarias says:

    Homeaway is making a secondary stock offering which will dilute the ownership of existing shareholders. see: http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/blog/techflash/2013/12/homeaway-files-for-secondary-public.html
    After hours trading has it down to $38 a 5% drop.

  8. Why consider HomeAway when Airbnb already executes the concept? Airbnb has to fight regulators so the only advantage for latecomers is the free ride they get; they still have to penetrate verticals like realtors and travel agents.

  9. jerry says:

    I have to say that I put Stephen Leeb, Porter Stansbury and that ilk in the same basket, which I call the “hustler basket.” Both have been around for years and, for some unknown reason, people seem to get sucked in to their get rich quick schemes again and again. Caveat emptor!

  10. catfish77 says:

    Why the secondary????????? I don’t get chills down my leg on these vacation prop stocks. More of the wealthy are selling out, moving out of country and relinquishing citizenship. Inflation is ramping up. Stock market will bust any day now.

  11. aterosin says:

    I have TRIP and I use Tripadvisor when I make travel plans. It is a great service. Priceline has been another good stock for me.

  12. Joan in Houston says:

    Well, After hearing of the secondary offering, I have had a change of heart re my strategy in owning AWAY. I sold my shares this morning immediately after reading about the secondary offering which had been announced last night. I “hustled” right out of Dodge!! I would rather miss opportunity than lose capital.

  13. Mark says:

    Interesting to see how they compete moving forward. I can only provide a customer perspective. We advertise on both home away/vrbo and TripAdvisor. Most of our booking inquires are coming in via TripAdvisor and we like them better.

  14. april39 says:

    some stock promoters are OK but Leeb wouldn’t give a dying human a glass of water! Pompous A/H !

  15. sina says:

    the middle class is surging in Asia .the middle -class lifestyle demands products mads with methanol-furniture.clothing. carpets. floors . plastics just to name a few.
    No surprise. Then. That demand for methanol is surging -up in addition to
    products . methanol is also used as a clean burning fuel more than one million methanol cars .
    are driven in china Expect tens of millions more by

  16. AWAY agrees to be bought by Expedia, as of now the price works out to about $38/share… so those who bought on Leeb’s boosterism just about broke even over two years.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.